MPC delay compensation based on maximal controllable sets for real-time driving simulators

This paper addresses the constrained control in relationship with time-delayed systems application. We are particularly interested in its potential application to driving simulation. Driving simulators are electro-mechanical structures that reproduce the environment of a driver (steering wheel, pedals, seat, road displayed on a screen,…) and are able to move within a restricted safe area on purpose to reproduce the driver’s feelings and particularly the acceleration ones through the inner ear. Those movements are controlled by the Motion Cueing Algorithm (MCA) which consists in a Model-based Predictive Controller (MPC) converting in closed loop the expected acceleration to displacements all by observing the physical constraints. Its design is realized in a way to minimize the difference between effective felt acceleration and the expected one. In this application context, the movements inertia and communication protocols may induce delays between the computation block of the controller and the response that lead to serious discomforts of the humans in the simulators, known under the Motion Sickness symptoms. In the present paper, we revisit the control formulation for this motion cueing algorithm in a control perspective and propose a control strategy that compensates the delays in way to satisfy real-time constraints during implementation in a simple yet effective manner. The performance and limitation of a such strategy are discussed to raise the awareness on the design trade-off and decisions.