A Design Improvement Study for the CFTF Centrifuge

The CFTF Centrifuge at Armstrong Laboratory will be a useful tool for crewmember training and human factors research for future high performance aircraft. The centrifuge features an accelearation of performance that is unmatched by other Air Force facilities, however, it lacks a set of powered gimbals that would allow positioning of the rider with respect to acceleration. With these additional degrees of freedom, riders could be exposed to an acceleration environment more representative of high-performance aircraft. To provide the additional degrees of freedom, this proposal presents a plan for a preliminary design of modification for the centrifuge and a software model capable of predicting the effect of the modifications on the rider. The software would enable scientists to specify a time history of desired crewmember accelerations and compute the required CFTF joint motions and actuator signals to best create a desired motion