Use of the Virtogo Chair for Antenna Pointing Experiments
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A motion platform is very important for the develpoment, testing and
calibration of the antenna pointing mechanism. Currently the sensors
(Gyrocompass and IMU), Antenna pointing mechanism and the real time
system is all mounted on the E-table which is not the ideal setup. To
simulate any disturbance, we need to move the table (which is not good
as computer in mounted on that) which cannot be done in any controlled
fashion. Ofcourse there is no feedback and also need two people to
move the table at any time. 

The Virtogo chair can act as a test platform for the antenna pointing
mechanism before the Atacama Desert Trek and for doing further
testing, characterization and  more development after the Desert Trek
(would definitely help with my thesis and probably would be helpful
for Antarctic Mission too). True that the chair is not accurate and
can't be used as the calibration table, but it atlease gives us a good
idea of the code/algorithms are working. Currently we don't have any
platform and that makes the testing of IMU, Compass and Antenna
pointing mechanism very difficult). Specifically, 

	1. The chair can be used for indoor testing of the antenna
pointing mechanim using the IMU and the Compass.

	2. The chair can also be used for outdoor testing (in the
parking lot outside Bldg. E). Since its not heavy at all, we can put
the chair on a cart. With the GPS, IMU, Compass and the Pointing
Mechanism mounted on the chair, we can do testing/demos for position
estimation and antenna pointing. 

	3. We can record roll/pitch/yaw from any robot (Marakhod logs
or HMMWV logs or Nomad data) and use those for simulating rover
motions using the chair. This way I can demonstrate pointing
performance at different disturbance rates. 

Apart from the Antenna pointing mechanism, the motion platform can be
used for:

	- Testing the mounts on the E-box. We can mount the E-box on
the platform and move it for few hrs.

	- Finally when people are tired/bored they can get some fun by
riding the platform. Or if someone is sleepy we can wake him/her up by
a jerky ride :-)