Hovercraft training simulator delay compensation design based on McFarland

The hovercraft is a high-performance amphibious ship. Hovercraft training simulator (HTS) is a virtual reality device in which a human being is able to feel as if they are actually driving the real Hovercraft. The transfer delay in the HTS is the main reason of degrading its performance and affecting its real-time which comes from many sources. To reduce the transfer delay effects, the improved McFarland compensator was used for HTS. It is an integral method, which doesn´t involve the process of kinetic equation solver in the HTS. Three coefficients of the corresponding consecutive velocity are used to predict the next states. These three factors determine the compensation ability of the compensator. The improved McFarland compensator makes up for the limitation that classic McFarland compensator can only be used to compensate for a fixed input of the simulation systems. Analysis of simulation results shows that the improved McFarland compensator is an effectively delay compensation, and can meet our demands.