trends in automation

The ultimate cinematic experience:

the Festo Motion

Terminal makes cinema seats very mobile and generates

some surprising effects.

A chase involving a sports car on an alpine pass is unfolding on

the screen. On a hairpin bend, the cinema seats tilt to the left –

only to swing back to the right when the car is travelling straight

ahead again. The cinemagoers feel the unevenness of the road

surface, hear the screeching of the tyres when the driver brakes

and smell burnt rubber. But that’s not the end. Suddenly water

is splashed into the audience’s faces as the car drives through

a puddle. At the same time, they can feel a draught of air blow-

ing through their hair. This is experiencing cinema with all the

senses in one of the 18,000 MX4D Motion EFX cinema seats

worldwide provided by Californian company MediaMation. Hid-

den in the seat, the Festo Motion Terminal VTEM controls the

movements and triggers all the effects. This versatile pneumatic

control system integrates digital functions into a single valve.

The motion apps “Proportional directional control valve” and

“Proportional pressure regulation” control the flow rates and

pressures to ensure fast and powerful yet gentle and precise

motion sequences.

The motion profiles for the films are processed in a controller

CPX-CEC directly on the Festo Motion Terminal. Many of the hard-

ware components previously required are now superfluous. Three

valves of the VTEM control the three actuators of each cinema

seat, while one valve regulates the pressure. Inexpensive stand-

ard valves VUVG-…-S from Festo’s core product range are used for

the effects such as the gusts of wind. “The Festo Motion Terminal

makes everything much easier for us. Installation, commission-

ing, diagnostics and fault-finding can now be realised with far

fewer components,” says Dan Jamele, CEO of MediaMation. As

a key contributor to Industry 4.0, VTEM allows many new func-

tions to be integrated thanks to digitisation and piezo technology.

MediaMation with its fast and intuitive operation is very well

received in the age of “Cinema 4.0”.

Cinema 4.0

1.2017

trends in automation

Impulse

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