On 3 July the Ampelmann Demontrator, a motion compensation platform, was presented in the harbour of Delft, the Netherlands.

It provides safe marine personnel transfer from any vessel to any offshore structure. The principle of this platform arises from the flight simulator technology used in the industry. A six legged flight simulator is capable to create movements in all six degrees of freedom (up-down, forward-backward, left-right and three rotations). By merging this technology with a set of accurate motions sensors and intelligent custom made controls onto the deck of a vessel, the basic idea of the Ampelmann is born: A flight simulator on top of a vessel that compensates all the wave-induced motions of a vessel. The Ampelmann is a project of Delft University of Technology and is supported by the Dutch government and several companies. After the test phase the Ampelmann will be commercially available through The Ampelman Company.
www.ampelmann.nl