AbstractsEngineering

This project aims to design and prototype an active horse gait simulator device.The main objective is to train horse riders and give them the feeling of riding areal horse. The mechanical structure as well as the control of this device have beendesigned, implemented and tested. A background study of horse gaits, and of thetrot, which is the gait to be recreated by the active chair, was performed. It includesan analysis of these gaits and a study of how best to recreate these motionsin a simplied manner, reducing the level of mechanical complexity from that ofa real horse to a simpler mechanical machine. The mechanical structure has beenmodelled as a lumped two mass system for the purpose of performing the designof a high level controller which commands the Siemens SINAMICS S120 AC drivesystem to drive the mechanical structure. The high level controller was designedin Matlab/Simulink environment on the basis of an Integral Backstepping controlapproach and automatically implemented on a dSPACE DS1104 R&D ControllerBoard. An electronics board was designed to integrate the eletronics hardware systemand a simple physical HMI was also designed in support of the interaction withthe device.The prototype device was tested to determine its performance in terms of accuracyand precision by comparing it with the simulation results. It was observed tobe controlled to an acceptable performance by the designed controller. Testing withreal riders showed that the motion of a horse's trot had been well recreated by thisprototype device.