A tracking system based on 2-DOF motion platform for flight simulator

With the development of flight control technologies, there is an increasing demand of flight simulators. Although the 6-DOF and 3-DOF flight simulators, can simulate different kinds of motion states, it has complex structure and is difficult to control and implement. Meanwhile, to improve the smooth movements, the paper designed a tracking system based on a 2-DOF motion platform, which consisted of a motion control system and 3D flight simulation software (Cessna 172 Simulator kits). The motion platform has a 2-DOF hybrid mechanism, where the motion control system realizes the tracking algorithm. The 3D flight simulation software calculates the flight data in real time. The quintic and the cubic polynomial trajectory tracking algorithms are proposed to solve the jitter problem of data transmission time. Finally the flight simulation platform is implemented to test the tracking system, and the results showed that it can track precise posture of aircraft with smooth velocity and acceleration.