Ahead of the simulator article in the October issue, IM can provides news of an entrant to the mining market. Cruden B.V. is a world leading designer and manufacturer of interactive motion-based racing simulators. It has set up a new Australia office and has mining as one of its targets.

The operation is headed up by Roy Park, a simulation expert with over 25 years’ experience designing, manufacturing and servicing advanced motion control systems in Australia, Singapore, Korea and China.

“Cruden’s strategic expansion into the Asia Pacific region reflects the growing adoption of simulators by automotive Tier One suppliers, OEM regional technical centres and motorsport formulae outside of Formula 1. It is also a response to the demand for more sophisticated motion systems in simulators for the defence and mining industries,” says Frank Kalff, Cruden’s Commercial Director. “As the technology becomes affordable and vehicle and road-modelling improves, Cruden’s professional simulators are now within the reach of new markets as a viable testing tool to help reduce costs and speed-up development time. We are now ideally placed to serve customers globally.”

Cruden’s background is in flight simulation and its current range of Hexatech simulators has been developed for the most technically challenging environment of Formula 1. Originating from Fokker Aircraft, the company was FCS Racing Simulation before becoming Cruden in 2006.