Make room
to feel it.

What the PDK asks of a room

The PDK is driven by six direct-drive motors and sold in four builds. Every figure below is ARK's own, with its source.

Figures as published by ARK on 1 October 2026.

How much floor space does the PDK need?

A motion platform's footprint is the floor its feet cover. On its own feet, the PDK's footprint is 1.00 × 1.00 m. On the extension feet it stands on three legs at 120°, one per motor block, and fits inside a circle 1.57 m across: plan that floor as a circle, not a rectangle. To mark it out, a cord 0.785 m long (1.57 ÷ 2), pinned at the centre, draws the circle.

Three of the four builds stand on the extension feet: the PDK + Extension Feet & Table, the PDK Racer and the PDK + ARK Ecosystem. The bare PDK stands on its own feet. The short version is in the FAQ.

How much space does the PDK need around it?

A keep-clear zone is the space around a moving platform that stays empty of people, pets and objects while it runs. The PDK's keep-clear zone is one of its rated limits, stated in the Safety Manual supplied with your kit together with the clearance envelope and rider height. The Terms require it empty before every session and during operation (7.3, 7.6).

Inside that zone the platform moves. Its single-axis spans are 158.23 mm fore and aft, 143.85 mm side to side and 117.35 mm up and down, read from the PDK firmware's boot banner. Combined moves reach further than these single-axis figures, so leave clearance beyond them. All six axes are in the envelope tables.

How much height does the PDK need?

The RSCV021 build as modelled, with its cockpit, is 1.13 m to the top of the seat tower, measured from ARK's CAD model. Fully retracted, the platform is 0.50 m high. Heave, the up-and-down axis, spans 117.35 mm in the published envelope: ±58.68 mm about its centre.

Above those figures, the ceiling depends on the seat you fit, which you supply, and on the rider in it. Rider height is one of the rated limits in the Safety Manual, beside the clearance envelope (Terms 7.1): plan the ceiling from that limit and from your seat.

What floor does the PDK need?

Anchoring is fixing a platform's feet to the floor and the structure beneath it. The PDK becomes a working machine only once it is assembled as the Installation Guide describes and anchored to a floor and structure that meet the rated limits (Terms 6.2). The first of its fourteen assembly steps is the feet: three floor mounts at 120°, each drilled and bolted to the ground.

Floor load and mounting are rated limits in the Safety Manual. Where the Installation Guide calls for a competent person for structural anchoring, the Terms require one. The floor is indoors, stable, level and dry: the Terms rule out operating outdoors, on an unstable or unlevel floor, or in a wet environment (7.6).

The RSCV021 build as modelled, with its cockpit, is 115 kg. The PDK's rated payload is 250 kg in total: rider, seat, cockpit, wheel, pedals and anything else bolted on. There is no separate rider-weight figure; the total is what counts.

What power does the PDK need?

A motion platform's power comes down to two figures: the continuous rating of its supply, and the peak its motors demand at the onset of a movement. On the PDK they come from different places.

The supply takes any mains from 100 to 290 V AC and is auto-switching: 3,000 W on 200–290 V mains, 1,400 W on a 100–130 V outlet. It goes on a properly earthed outlet, and only the supplied or an approved power supply is used (Terms 7.7).

The peaks come from a capacitor bank, not the wall: three 0.47 F, 63 V capacitors, 1.41 F in all (3 × 0.47 F), store energy between movements and release it at the onset, a peak of 30 kW. The power architecture sets out each element.

That peak is 10 times the supply's 3,000 W (30,000 ÷ 3,000) and 21.4 times its 1,400 W (30,000 ÷ 1,400). 30 kW is not a load on your wiring. The socket feeds the supply, and the supply is rated at the two figures above.

There is no compressed-air line to run. An integrated HC210B compressor feeds the pneumatic cylinders that carry the static load, so the six direct-drive motors spend their current moving you, not holding you up.

The power-supply limits are rated limits in the Safety Manual. Where the Installation Guide calls for a competent person for electrical work, the Terms require one (6.2).

How does the PDK arrive?

A kit is a machine delivered as parts, with the instructions to build it. Every PDK is supplied that way, with the Installation Guide and the Safety Manual (Terms 6.1).

It ships in six to nine boxes by build, up to nine for the PDK + ARK Ecosystem, and no box is over 26 kg. So the machine never goes through a doorway in one piece: the boxes open in numbered order, and the fourteen assembly steps follow them, feet first, in the room where it will stand. The box plan and the assembly sequence are on the development kits page.

What else goes in the room?

The rest of the room is what you supply. No build includes a seat, PC, display or games (Terms 3.3), and the seat must be rated for motion use. Plan for these too:

• An Ethernet run from your PC to the platform: the PC link is Ethernet.
• The emergency stop, placed within the rider's reach, and within a second person's reach when one is present (Safety, 7.2).
• Ventilation as the Installation Guide requires, and nothing flammable near the drives and power electronics (Terms 7.7).

Which build fits which room?

A build is the PDK plus what it stands on and what it carries. The motion core is the same in all four; the floor you plan follows the feet.

Prices in USD for the United States and the rest of the world, and in EUR for the EU with VAT and import duty included. Shipping is quoted separately; taxes by region are in the FAQ.