Motion platforms make easy access
While motion platforms are usually used to simulate real world motion, researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in The Netherlands are using them to cancel real world motion
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Dr Jan van der Tempel and his colleagues at TUDelft believe that cancelling motion would help maintenance crew to gain safe access to wind turbines and other offshore structures in rough weather.
He has given the project the name Ampelmann, after the pedestrian crossing symbol used in Germany.
The system detects motion using an ‘Octans’ giro compass and sensing system made by French company IXSea.
Information from the sensing system keeps a top platform level and at constant height relative to the fixed object to be maintained. Following tests with a scale model, the next stage is the construction of a full-scale prototype – ready for offshore testing at the end of Summer 2007.
The reference site is the 108MW near-shore Wind Park off the Dutch Coast. To give the system a workability of more than 90%, the system must be able to work up to a sea state with a significant wave height of 2.5m. At the test site, this translates to being able to work 93% of the year.
