Development of electronic system for horse-rider interaction in a simulator

Abstract

This master´s thesis is about investigating a wireless interface of the sensor system for transferring the data to the main controller to provide smooth and reliable monitoring and control for the simulator. This horse consists of various sensors which transfer important physical parameters to the main controller of the system. In this case Beckhoff PLC model: CX2030 is the main controller of the simulator. For the signal transferring, wireless method is selected to make this package more convenient and let riders to act on the horse more freely. By considering four degree of freedom, this design makes simulation closer to a real horse. This project aims to support a horse-rider trainee, to learn how to treat with a horse and learn how to ride it in different types of riding patterns such as walking, trotting and cantering. A real horse can run and practice for just one hour per day whereas a trainee can practice riding with this package all day long. In this field, there are not so many research and innovations available. This simulator has been designed by some companies, so far in this investigation I aim to develop wireless transmission interface to it.

The system which is developed consists of two main parts. First part includes Force sensor and inclinometer connected to the Arduino MKR wifi 1010. Calf angle and calf force from rider is measured in this part. Second part includes Beckhoff PLC which is connected to the wifi router via LAN network. Sensor’s signal from Arduino is transmitted to the TwinCAT software by means of MQTT protocol over wireless communication. The results of this thesis show that the communication can be conducted by using this architecture, and the long-time experiment shows that the communication is reliable without disconnection or missing data.