International Development of Technology

Projects

Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory (CEAL)

University of Leeds Advanced Driving Simulator

Rheinmetall Defense Electronics

ICAO International Working Group

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Customer Categories

Research Centres, seeking cost-effective solutions for specific scientific research with the use of simulation or related technologies. We work with the customer to specify the requirements, procure the right systems, and integrate the solution.

Airframe and automobile manufacturers, seeking the optimum solution for the virtual development of aircraft or vehicles. We support the specification of the simulation equipment, and oversee the development of the in-house capability.

Training Providers, seeking to develop or upgrade their facilities. We provide the expertise needed to procure the correct solutions, and can also provide those solutions through our industrial network.

Simulator manufacturers, seeking to improve their products. We support the qualification of their products to applicable norms or international standards, or to provide engineering support to these products. Our specific experience in physical cueing systems is unique.

Our general approach - work closely with the customer to find the optimum solution, and involve the customer during the development cycle.

cycle

Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory (CEAL)

IDT is the Integrator of the CEAL Simulator of Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

The Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory will be a new, state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility to perform effective and improved research on the field of rehabiliation therapy and the development of assistivedevices. The laboratory will be built in downtown Toronto, Canada, and is established to support and improve the independence and mobility of the elderly and persons who had a stroke, a brain injury, spinal cord injury or other injurie or illness that affect their mobility in everyday life.

For example, the Ice Chamber is a fully enclosed cabin with an ice floor and wind generator and will be used to simulate winterconditions. Other research pallets will be the Visual Dome and a cabin toaccommodatestaircases, furnished rooms, force plates and street curbs.

Safety is a critical aspect in this project. Altough falls may be caused intentionally, for example by perturbations of the motion system, patients should not get hurt or become injured by a fall. Therefore, IDT has developed a safety harness robot that actively follows the patient wherever he moves in the simulator. The patient will be unrestrained during his movements but in the event of a fall, the safety harness robot catches the patient.

IDT Responsibilities

IDT is the project integrator of the CEAL simulator. In this project, IDT is responsible for:

Specification of integrated simulation environment, including:
- Motion System and motion cueing environment
- Visual Display System
- Audio Cueing System
- Specialized simulation environments, such as the Ice Chamber
Monitoring of all interfaces within simulation environment
Interfaces with building and infrastructure
Overall program management

Falls Lab

IDT is also the project integrator of the falls laboratory simulator of the Toronto Rehabiliation Institute. The falls laboratory simulator will be used to induce falls of patients by sudden and quick moviements of the base platform they are standing on. The Falls Lab simulator will be a small cabin with a frontal projection screen. The cabin is placed on a XY-table with a turntable and gimbal mechanism to simulate yaw, pitch and roll rotations respectively.

For more information, please have a look at iDAPT program (Toronto Rehabilitation Institute)

University of Leeds Advanced Driving Simulator

For the ITS Safety Group of the University of Leeds in Leeds, United Kingdom, an advanced driving simulator has been developed. The driving simulator is a 6-degree-of-freedom hexapod motion system which is placed on top of a gantry type motion system. In this way, longer and stronger acceleration cues, typical for cars, can be simulated, for example during braking or when turning a corner at high speed. On top of the motion system, a visual dome is placed with a vehicle cab (Jaguar S-Type) inside. A projection system projects an image on the inside of the dome. The driver can control the vehicle cab just like a normal car while at the same time the motion system and projection system simulate accurate movements and visualisations.

IDT has supported the integration of the University of Leeds Advanced Driving Simulator and involved qualified partners in the realisation of this project.

For more information, please visit the University of Leeds driving simulator website

BMW Dynamic Driving Simulator

The challenges for the automobile industry in terms of developing and testing new driver systems can be tackled through virtual testing. IDT (through its affiliate ADSE b.v.) provided BMW in Munich, Germany, with a unique, high-performance driving simulation system. This high-performance simulator, utilizing a hexapod motion system and a composite materials dome, is used for various internal studies.

More information can be found at 7-Forum.com BMW und Autonews

NASA Ames Research Center

For the Vertical Motion Simulator of NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, IDT has developed a assymmetric motion system which replaces the ball joint which was originally used to simulate motions around the horizontal axes.

With the assymmetric motion system, the simulator will have 6 degrees of freedom, supported by an existing gantry type motion system to increase motion simulation capability in the longitudinal direction and in the vertical direction.

The advantage of this new layout is that small motions can be simulated by the assymetric motion system while the larger strokes are simulated by the gantry system.

For more information, please have a look at the website of NASA Ames Research Center

Alteon Flight Training

With training locations in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Alteon (a Boeing company) is a worldwide provider of airline training. The training facilities accomodate many Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Airbus and Fokker type of full flight simulators. IDT performed a major tuning of Level D raster-calligraphic displays at Alteon Boeing in Seattle on their 757-200 and 747-400 full flight simulators. We also provided on-the-job training to the Alteon staff through our visual system expert. For the quality of our work, our customer provided a unique Certificate of Appreciation. to IDT.

For more information about Alteon, please have a look at their website www.alteontraining.com

Rheinmetall Defense Electronics

Rheinmetall Defense Electronics (RDE) located in Bremen, Germany, is a manufacturer of defense technology and security equipment. As part of their simulation and training division, RDE has developed the AVIOR Laser Projection System. In order to use this laser projection system in professional full flight simulators, IDT has supported and consulted RDE during the level D certification process of their AVIOR system.

For more information, please have a look at www.rheinmetall-detec.de

ProRail

ProRail, located in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the Dutch railway infrastructure. The Dutch railways are one of the world's most densely used railways in the world. To increase the effective use of the railways by allowing trains to drive closer after each other, ProRail plans to utilise simulation to test new rail safety monitoring systems (ERMTS vs. ATB), to develop human interfaces and to investigate human factors inf train operations.

As a consultant, IDT supports and advises ProRail in the development of a simulation program and the realization of an interactive train simulation program to train traffic controllers and train drivers.

Please have a look at www.prorail.nl

ICAO International Working Group

With a background and expertise in flight simulation and simulation systems, IDT is one of the members of the ICAO Internation Working Group (International Civil Aviation Organization). IDT is involved in the development and evaluation of an objective process to evaluate motion cueing systems in flight simulators. The current objective is to evaluate the process on flight training simulators. For this, IDT works together with international flight simulation research institutes like the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS, Toronto, Canada), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA, Tokyo, Japan), the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI, Zhukovsky, Russia) and the National Aerospace Laboratorium (NLR, Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

Please have a look at the ICAO website for more information about this organization.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

JAXA With the current involvement of IDT in the improvement of the fidelity of the motion cueing algorithms, IDT has supported the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Tokyo, Japan, in developing and testing its research flight simulator. This device uses an hydraulic motion system from Mitsubishi Precision, and a wide-angle collimating display (monitor-based) with systems from Glass Mountain Optics.

For more information, please have a look at JAXA's website