Mitsubishi Electric has provided the fan drives and controls for a new indoor skydiving tunnel in Manchester, UK. Airkix Indoor Skydiving comprises a GBP4.5m, 14ft-diameter, 1,600hp wind tunnel. By blasting 1.7 million cubic feet of air every minute through a wind tunnel, Airkix suspends its flyers in the air, emulating the effect of freefall and offering the chance to experience real human flight. The basis of the Mitsubishi installation is four large F700 variable-speed inverter drives.Combined, these have a capacity of 12MW, which is enough to lift several flyers simultaneously, while maintaining safety and operating all day long. Eight louvers are precision controlled using E700 drives to optimise the airflow, allowing fresh air into the system to maintain a cool fresh temperature and a comfortable atmosphere. Mitsubishi has installed one of its MX4 supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) control networks, which includes data logging, energy optimisation and many other functions.
The heart of the Scada network is a Q-series PLC, Mitsubishi's building block for control systems, which communicates with the drives and other field devices around the simulator using the CC-Link open-source protocol. Airkix was keen to use the Mitsubishi-developed CC-Link because it is able to shut down parts of the system for maintenance, while keeping the rest up and running.
