Optimal Actuation Mechanisms for a Low-Cost Road Simulator

The running path characterized by all its components (roughness, etc.) is one important parameter in realizing the motion cueing for driving simulators. Thus, a road simulator can be considered an important component of a driving simulator. This paper proposes an actuation mechanism (leveraged mechanism) to be used in the setup of a road simulator with the purpose of reproducing different categories of standardized roads. The kinematic modeling of the actuation mechanism is presented and an optimization method for its geometrical parameters is exposed. Simulations are run in order to validate the effectiveness of the provided optimized geometrical parameters. The experimental results obtained are in accordance with the simulation results and prove that the proposed actuation mechanisms are a good solution to be used in the construction of a road simulator.