Toshiba air conditioning – one for the LADS

In one of the most unusual air conditioning installations that Darrel Birkett, Toshiba Distributor CDL’s managing director, has been involved with, a single ducted Toshiba Digital Inverter Split system has been installed in a driving simulator cab at the LADS centre (Leeds Advanced Driving Simulator) at the University of Leeds. The air conditioning unit will make experiment conditions tolerable and realistic within the new specialized movement cab of the simulator. The energy efficient inverter controlled air conditioning system is appropriately ‘hi-tech’.
Since it became operational in 1994, the Leeds Advanced Driving Simulator (LADS) has been an essential element in much of the driver behaviour and transport safety research work carried out at the University of Leeds. The simulator allows research into driver behaviour, road safety and intelligent transport systems to be performed in accurately controlled laboratory conditions.
Prior to its decommissioning in October 2005, it was used in 25 major externally-funded projects with a combined total value of nearly £3m. Development work is currently reaching completion to upgrade the LADS facility to one of the most advanced worldwide in a research environment.
The new LADS incorporates an eight degree of freedom motion system. Lateral accelerations are simulated by sliding the whole vehicle cab and dome configuration along a railed gantry. Similarly, the whole gantry slides along tracks to create longitudinal acceleration cues. The 10m long rails and tracks allow 5m of effective travel in each direction.
The project claims a high degree of accuracy in reproducing actual road surface travel conditions with bumps and bends testing the driver effectively during important experiments.

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