Questions,
answered.

Developers, integrators and research partners who build on a development kit. The Portal Development Kit (PDK) is supplied as a kit of parts for evaluation and development, and the recipient assembles and commissions it.

The PDK (Portal Development Kit) needs 1.00 × 1.00 m of floor on its own feet, or a circle 1.57 m across on its extension feet, and an earthed wall outlet: 3,000 W on 200–⁠290 V mains, 1,400 W on a 100–⁠130 V outlet such as a US one. No compressed-air line; the compressor is built in. It can stand on its extension feet without bolting, or you bolt the feet to the floor for a fixed installation. Room and power in detail: how much room and power a motion platform needs.

Four builds share one motion core. The PDK is the core with a flat top — mount your own seat or rig. PDK + Extension Feet & Table adds the extension feet and the two-piece wood table. PDK Racer adds the aluminum racing chassis, stabilizer feet and pedal tray. PDK + ARK Ecosystem adds the ARK direct-drive wheelbase, wheel, button box and pedals: the complete build in one development kit.

Compare the four builds

Yes. The flat top ships with a 10 mm plywood cover. Your seat mounts directly on the table: drill the wood top, or bolt through the holes in its aluminum skeleton. A rig or cockpit mounts the same way.

A seat rated for motion use (Safety, 7.3). No build includes one. It mounts directly on the top: drill the wood top, or bolt through the holes in its aluminum skeleton. Our full-rig cost page counts a racing seat at $399.

Yes. The two-piece wood table gives you a lot of room to mount flight hardware. Rudder pedals work: we use them ourselves.

Yes. The recipient assembles it: the kit arrives as pre-assembled modules in six to nine boxes depending on the build, none over 26 kg, and bolts together feet first. The Safety Manual and Installation Guide ship with the kit; the Kinemaniacs community site, where recipients will share build notes and tuning profiles, is in development.

The assembly steps

FlyPT Mover and SimHub integration, with 80+ games supported locally. FlyPT Mover is a free third-party tool that turns game telemetry into platform motion, and it keeps its own list of titles. You can also drive the platform from your own code.

Yes. The PDK works with Xbox and PlayStation too.

Yes. Motion compensation works on the PDK, so the view in your headset stays steady while the platform moves.

Yes. Maglev is our name for the technology that makes the platform feel weightless: per-axis friction and gravity compensation maps in the drive firmware, measured on the wheel at 0.00435 N·m against a 0.005 N·m pass mark. They ride on pneumatic compensators and direct-drive motors. The air carries the mass, the motors move it, and the maglev maps make it feel frictionless.

Adjustments to the Stewart platform that separate weight-bearing from positioning: a pneumatic actuator carries the load and a direct-drive actuator does the moving. It is patented technology, granted 11 February 2025.

Read the patent page

The PDK is supplied for evaluation and development under the Development Kit Evaluation Agreement. Commercial operation — a venue, an attraction, paid rides — needs a separate Commercial Operator Agreement; institutional use needs a separate academic license. Write to us with what you are planning.

Contact

Under 1 ms and 3 g on all six axes, fully loaded (250 kg). 3 g is the firmware limit on the development kit; the hardware envelope is larger.

Every figure on this site is tracked to its source: the RSCV021 CAD model, a primary document, or ARK's published specification. A dotted underline marks a tracked figure.

Measured 1 m away: 71 dB while racing, 47 dB with the rig switched off. The air compressor (73 dB) runs only when you get on, when you get off, and during activity, when the system measures an imbalance in weight. The motion is fully tunable, so to run it quieter, turn the motor gains down. The one part to watch is the seat you fit.

Footprint 1.00 × 1.00 m for the PDK on its own feet, 1.57 m in diameter with the extension feet splayed at 120°. Retracted height 0.50 m. Height 1.13 m to the top of the seat tower. Mass 115 kg. Footprint and height are measured from the CAD model; the mass is the designer's stated figure, and the CAD model agrees.

No external air: an integrated HC210B compressor feeds the pneumatic cylinders that carry the static load. Power comes from a universal 100–⁠290 V AC supply that auto-switches — 3,000 W on 200–⁠290 V mains, 1,400 W on a 100–⁠130 V outlet — backed by a bank of three 0.47 F, 63 V capacitors that recirculate braking energy. The compressor is measured from the CAD model.

No. Your game sends at its own rate, typically 60 Hz. The PDK turns that into motion 1,000 times a second (1 kHz game to motion), and each update has the platform moving in under a millisecond. Inside the platform, the control loop runs at 3.3 kHz and each motor's field-oriented control at 8 kHz. None of these is a telemetry rate to your PC or game.

Around every pose the platform can reach. The single-axis figures on the technology page are the motion envelope, and combined moves reach further, so leave clearance beyond them.

See the envelope tables

It lets the controller reason in the rider's coordinates, surge, sway, heave and the three rotations, rather than only in leg lengths. That is the basis for task-space control and for reporting where the platform is.

Not on its own. Every rig has to come back to center before the next move, and more travel means a longer trip back. Bigger rigs are slow, and they drag you back to center. The PDK answers the game in under 1 ms and brings you back below what your inner ear can detect, so all you feel is the car. The PDK pairs that speed with 3 g on all six axes, fully loaded (250 kg). The full comparison is on More travel or faster motion.