Combined wind speed and angle control in a virtual environment using a static observer

This paper develops a static observer for estimating wind speed in order to control wind speed and angle control at a user position in a submersive virtual environment. Addition of wind display evolves the Treadport Virtual environment into a highly immersive virtual environment called Treadport Active Wind Tunnel (TPAWT). Experiments on a scaled model of the TPAWT show that headwind flow stream diverges at the user. Pitot tube sensors placed at a particular region of converged flow in the scaled TPAWT provide measurements with lower noise. Open loop experiments on a scaled model of TPAWT show that there exists a relationship between speed measured at this region of converged flow and the wind speed at the user position. Using this relationship, the wind speed at the user can be estimated. We use this relation and combine previously used speed and angle controllers based upon the small gain theorem with a dynamic extension and conditional angular rate-switching control. Finally, we simultaneously control wind speed and headwind angle.