The objective of this work was to develop control strategies and testing procedures for the Slam Impact Seat Test Rig (SISTR). The SISTR was developed to more ac- curately test suspension seats for use in high speed craft (HSC). In general, HSC are defined as vessels which can achieve speeds higher than 30 knots, and are com- monly used for search and rescue, law enforcement, and military operations. HSC are subject to extreme repeated shock and vibration loading and therefore so are their occupants. Therefore it is vital that the testing machines used to evaluate these seats can acurately reproduce the motion that HSCs are subjected to at sea.