Design, Construction and Control of a Motion Generating Mechanism for an Interactive Cycling Simulator

Sports simulation mechanisms practically have a lot of appeal and application to implement virtual reality environments. Cycling simulator has a more special place in sports and urban transportation due to the popularity of cycling activities. In this paper, the design and construction of a new motion generating mechanism for an interactive cycling simulator is presented. First, by using the references, the range of velocity and acceleration that the user should experience while cycling has been extracted, and by analyzing other cycling simulators, the required degrees of freedom and its range have been determined. Then, a new motion generating mechanism with two degrees of freedom is designed. Genetic algorithm has been used for dimensional optimization of the mechanism parameters. Kinematics and dynamic equations of the mechanism have been extracted. According to the dynamic model of the mechanism, a controller has been designed using the feedback linearization method and the performance have been investigated. Finally, the designed motion generating mechanism has been constructed and the position control has been implemented on the platform.