B306-HMD Motorcycle Simulator: Cruden but Effective

Cruden, sending out word and video of its new simulator from Amsterdam, claims to be the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of professional, open architecture HIL/DIL driving simulators, simulator components and software. Originating from Fokker Aircraft Company in the late 1990s, Cruden was formed in 2004 and today serves the automotive, motorsport and marine industries. The company’s complete simulator packages interface with any customer vehicle model and include on- and off-board projection systems. Cruden also produces vehicle, road/track and tire models in-house. The company launched its open architecture Panthera software suite in 2015.

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From Cruden:

Since Cruden built the world’s first professional-grade motorcycle simulator in 2005, it has been further developing hardware, software, motion cueing, vehicle dynamics, rendering and content with the goal to produce a realistic motorcycle simulator that can be used professionally by manufacturers, race teams, universities, research institutions and road safety organisations.

To simulate motorcycle riding with authenticity, the Cruden B306-HMD motorcycle simulator incorporates a 6-DOF motion system in hexapod configuration, depth-map sensors for rider body tracking, an extra stiff steering actuator and a Head Mounted Display (HMD) for visualisation.

Cruden’s CEO, Maarten van Donselaar, explains: “In developing the Cruden motorcycle simulator, it has been necessary to create more complex hardware and software than that needed for a car simulator. We have had to address riders’ force-related bike control inputs as opposed to drivers’ steering angle inputs as well as develop mechanisms that manage counter-steering, body-shift and widely varying riding styles and the requirement for a very large field of view, both horizontally and vertically.

“Our system with depth-map sensors continuously detects exactly how the rider is positioned on the bike and uses this information to alter vehicle behaviour accordingly. To complement this, a very stiff steering actuator allows for realistic counter-steering capabilities. We also decided to equip our B306-HMD motorcycle simulator with a Head Mounted Display (HMD), to offer a virtually unlimited field of view. An unprecedented level of immersion is aided by highly accurate graphics and a perfect integration of the HMD into Cruden’s Panthera simulation software. This integration sees the HMD respond to the riders’s head movements, not to those of the motion platform.”

The B306-HMD simulator is intended to be of considerable value to scientists researching how to make motorcycling safer on public roads, which requires a better understanding of variances in individual rider technique and the interaction of the rider with the environment. The simulator will make detailed analysis of this possible in a controlled and safe environment. Cruden expects its simulator will also be used in high-level rider training, racing simulations and fine-tuning vehicle dynamics.

The B306-HMD motorcycle simulator is available now.

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