Engineering Flight Simulator Research Articles

Simulation framework and development of the Future Systems Simulator

Abstract The Aerospace Integration Research Centre (AIRC) at Cranfield University offers industry and academia an open environment to explore the opportunities for efficient integration of aircraft systems. As a part of the centre, Cranfield University, Rolls-Royce, and DCA Design International jointly have developed the Future Systems Simulator (FSS) for the purpose of research and development in areas such as human factors in aviation, single-pilot operations, future cockpit design, aircraft electrification, and alternative control approaches. Utilising the state-of-the-art modularity principles in simulation technology, the FSS is built to simulate a diverse range of current and novel aircraft, enabling researchers and industry partners to conduct experiments rapidly and efficiently. Central to the requirement, a unique, user-experience-centred development and design process is implemented for the development of the FSS. This paper presents the development process of such a flight simulator with an innovative flight deck. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates the FSS’s capabilities through case studies. The cutting-edge versatility and flexibility of the FSS are demonstrated through the diverse example research case studies. In the final section, the authors provide guidance for the development of an engineering flight simulator based on lessons learned in this project.

Statistical Evaluation of Pilot’s Behavior Models Parameters Connected to Military Flight Training

The paper discusses the possibilities of objective assessment of military flight training quality based on statistical evaluation of pilot’s behavior models parameters. For these purposes, the pilots’ responses to non-standard flight situations were measured by using a fixed-base and a moving-base engineering flight simulator. Tens of military pilots at different training stages were tested. By exploiting real-life tests, we established that the given pilot models provide sufficiently accurate approximation of realistic human responses. Importantly, the models are relatively easy to use, and the individual parameters can be unambiguously interpreted, i.e., the time constants of the pilot behavior model are obtainable, representing the pilot’s current psychological and physiological state of mind. The parameters lay in the defined ranges, and they characterize the ability of the human/pilot to adapt to a controlled dynamic system. Consequently, a fundamental statistical analysis based on pilot’s behavioral model parameters was conducted, using the acquired test data representing the pilot’s behavior during repeated measuring. The initial results indicate the possibility to use the results for objective assessment the military flight training level.

Conceptual Design, Flying, and Handling Qualities Assessment of a Blended Wing Body (BWB) Aircraft by Using an Engineering Flight Simulator

The Blended Wing Body (BWB) configuration is considered to have the potential of providing significant advantages when compared to conventional aircraft designs. At the same time, numerous studies have reported that technical challenges exist in many areas of its design, including stability and control. This study aims to create a novel BWB design to test its flying and handling qualities using an engineering flight simulator and as such, to identify potential design solutions which will enhance its controllability and manoeuvrability characteristics. This aircraft is aimed toward the commercial sector with a range of 3000 nautical miles, carrying 200 passengers. The BWB design was flight tested at an engineering flight simulator to first determine its static stability through a standard commercial mission profile, and then to determine its dynamic stability characteristics through standard dynamic modes. Its flying qualities suggested its stability with a static margin of 8.652% of the mean aerodynamic chord (MAC) and consistent response from the pilot input. In addition, the aircraft achieved a maximum lift-to-drag ratio of 28.1; a maximum range of 4,581 nautical miles; zero-lift drag of 0.005; while meeting all the requirements of the dynamic modes.

Development and Application of a Reconfigurable Engineering Flight Simulator at Ryerson University

Flight simulators can recreate aircraft flights for flight training and aircraft design. This paper reviews existing engineering flight simulators and introduces the development of a multi-purpose reconfigurable engineering flight simulator at Ryerson University. The multi-purpose engineering flight simulator named the Ryerson Fixed Base Simulator (RFBS) has been designed and built to teach and initiate research projects in the area of aircraft design, flight simulation, pilot training, and flight data analysis. It consists of three 46 inch high definition screens and six 22 inch touch screen panels to represent the instrument panel, the centre console, and the overhead panels of an actual aircraft flight deck. Several low-cost, commercial flight simulation software were tested and X-Plane was selected as the main flight simulation tool. This paper also introduces a research that utilizes the RFBS and a commercial flight analysis software. The objective of the research was to develop a flight data conversion methodology. A case study was commenced to verify the work flow of flight data generation and analysis with an example of hard-landing analysis.

Simulation Data Lifecycle Management Based on Engineering Flight Simulation Platform

Lifecycle management has been a hot spot in software engineering research domain. This paper tries to manage simulation data with the concept of lifecycle management, and then presents the concept of SDLM (Simulation Data Lifecycle Management). Meanwhile, the model of extended hyper graph core data which is used to implement SDLM and the way to build it were presented. All the work is in the background of engineering flight simulation platform.

某工程飞行模拟器中便携式数字测试仪的研究

工程飞行模拟器是一个复杂的人机半实物仿真系统，是研制新型飞机不可缺少的设备。开发成本高；占用空间场地大；不便于异地迁移。尤其当试飞现场飞机发生故障时，无法在复杂的现场环境发挥工程飞行模拟器的作用。本文研究的工程飞行模拟器便携式数字测试仪，是工程飞行模拟器的一个子系统。它具有支持试飞现场测试；通用；携带方便等特点。文中重点讨论了便携式测试仪的自定式测试界面设计；集成式测试控件设计及多种数据总线接口转换等问题。Engineering flight simulator is a complicated semi-physical simulation system, which is the indis-pensable equipment for developing new aircraft. It has high cost of development, space site, and does not facilitate offsite migration. Especially, when failure occurs at the plane test site, engi-neering flight simulator cannot play the role well in the complex environment of the scene. Engi-neering Flight Simulator portable digital test instrument of this research is a sub system of engi-neering flight simulator. It has the support of flight test on site; general; easy to carry. This paper mainly discussed the self-design of test interface of a portable test instrument, problems of inte-grated test control design, a variety of data bus interface transitions, etc.

Research of Data Model in Engineering Flight Simulation Platform Based on Meta-Data

The research of data model is a key technology in engineering flight simulation platform. This work analyses the engineering flight simulation platform’s present research situation and specific demands. Then we propose a data model in engineering flight simulation platform based on meta-data. The model shields the heterogeneity of system data and can build association between system data. At last, we finished the data management module in engineering flight simulation platform based on the model mentioned above, which proved that this data model has greater significance in realizing generality and expandability in engineering flight simulation platform.

Commercial Transport Aircraft Flight Simulator Flying Qualities Airworthiness Verification

Flight simulation is a simulation of flight and various aspects of the flight environment. Flight simulation is used for a variety of reasons, including aircraft development and flight training. The engineering flight simulator is used for a certain commercial transport aircraft development. The aircraft adopts fly-by-wire flight control technology. The engineering flight simulator was mainly used as a platform to test flying quality of the aircraft. The simulator has actual aircraft cockpit with wide-field visual system mounted on large six degree of freedom(DOF) motion platform that feature comprehensive flight and systems models. In order to demonstrate the flying quality of the aircraft, Flying quality verification experiments were carried out on the simulator. This test provided a means by which one may evaluate flight characteristics for fly-by-wire flight control commercial transport aircraft. Experiment results were evaluated .

Wake vortex encounters in a flight simulator

AbstractA real-time model of a wake vortex has been developed for an engineering flight simulator, which enables studies to be undertaken into the effects of wake vortex encounters with civil transport aircraft. A brief summary of the methods used to create a vortex model and integrate it with a real-time flight simulator is presented. Tools have been developed to determine the structural loads on an aircraft during a simulated wake vortex encounter and to visualise the airframe loads. Four wake vortex encounters were flown with different pilot recovery strategies and automatic flight controls. It is clear from analysis of these results that it is difficult for a pilot to appreciate the margin of tail loading during an encounter and a prototype training display is outlined to enable pilots to fully understand the effects of rudder inputs in recovery from these events.

Design on assembled real-time management system for engineering flight simulator

The paper gave an in-depth research on the assembled software,in view of the problems of the software reusability and maintainability in the real-time management system of the engineering flight simulator. It discussed the classification and construction of the components,the open management of the simulation parameters,the assembling of the components and the scheduling of the system in the assembled management system. It improves the reusability,scalability and maintainability of the system.

Improving Aircraft Sequencing and Separation at a Small Aircraft Transportation System Airport

Ever-increasing traffic levels at the nation’s major airports have led to traffic congestion and flight delays. Capacity must be increased by building more airports at a great cost or by expanding services to some of the 4,500 airports not currently served by scheduled air carriers. A system must be developed to handle the increased traffic at these non-controlled airports, especially when instrument meteorological conditions prevail. Much work has been performed under the NASA Small Aircraft Transportation System program to determine the feasibility of aircraft operation under instrument flight rules in an air-traffic control free environment. This paper presents research, performed as an extension of the SATS program, into self-separation of general aviation aircraft in a self-controlled airport environment. The research focused on two specific areas: (1) improving automatic sequencing of aircraft of different speeds to make the airspace more efficient, saving time, fuel, and money, and (2) assisting the pilot with approach timing decisions to assure safe aircraft spacing while proceeding in an efficient manner. The primary evaluation method was a real-time distributed simulation with test cases performed by multiple pilots flying simultaneously in the simulation environment. Simulations and test scenarios were performed in the Engineering Flight Simulator, a modular, real-time, nonlinear, six degreeof-freedom fixed base simulator, at Texas A&M University. The pilots flew various general aviation aircraft with differing approach speeds under instrument meteorological conditions. Approach speeds ranged from 80 kts. to 140kts. to encompass the majority of aircraft from small trainers up to light jets that will use the potential SATS airports. New spacing rules were implemented to reduce holding times, and Total Holding Time was used as a metric to validate these new rules. Simulations were performed both with and without automated sequencing to validate the new spacing rules and compare the effects of automated sequencing. A human factors analysis was performed to determine the benefits of shifting some spacing functions from the pilot to the onboard systems, and reductions in pilot workload and improvements in pilot performance were measured to assess the safety improvements due to the increased automation. Based on the results presented in the paper, it was concluded that by changing the sequencing procedure to assign airspace entries once the aircraft are closer to the airport, potential bottlenecks can be avoided and holding times reduced. Furthermore, as a result of the increased avionics functionality and a change in approach spacing guidelines, safety is improved, and holding times are reduced. With these two improvements combined, significant holding time reductions are achieved resulting in fuel and cost savings and further make the self-controlled airport a safe and viable transportation alternative.

An engineering flight simulator used as a multi-purpose teaching and research tool

An engineering flight simulator used as a multi-purpose teaching and research tool

The Cranfield aircraft handling qualities rating scale: a multidimensional approach to the assessment of aircraft handling qualities

AbstractThe Cooper-Harper scale is currently the only well-established scale for assessing aircraft handling qualities. However, as a result of having a unidimensional format the Cooper-Harper scale lacks diagnostic power and has also been criticised for exhibiting poor reliability. The Cranfield Aircraft Handling Qualities, Rating Scale (CAHQRS) is a new, multidimensional rating scale using concepts from two established scales, the NASA-TLX workload scale and the Cooper-Harper scale. This paper provides an overview of the development of the CAHQRS and the results from a series of validation trials in an engineering flight simulator. An in-flight refuelling task and an approach and landing task using a range of control laws were used in these evaluations. The results showed that the CAHQRS had high positive correlations with the Cooper-Harper scale. However, the CAHQRS also demonstrated greater validity, diagnostic power and higher test/re-test reliability than the previous scale.

The design of a real-time engineering flight simulator for the rapid prototyping of avionics systems and flight control systems

This paper describes the design of a real-time flight simulator, which is based on a modular architecture of PCs coupled by Ethernet. The simulator is required to provide a rapid prototyping environment to support the design and evaluation of avionics systems and flight control systems. Methods are described to ensure real-time implementation of the equations of motions using a standard PC and the provision of real-time graphics to simulate aircraft displays using SVGA. The paper includes analysis of the performance of the flight modelling methods and the simulation of aircraft displays. The paper concludes that high fidelity flight models and aircraft displays can be implemented using standard PC platforms and Ethernet cards, if attention is given to the design of the simulator architecture. The resultant simulator provides a rapid prototyping environment, standardising on the packet format and low-level packet protocols of Ethernet,

Pilots's Associate Demonstration One

A brief overview is given of the DARPA- and AFWAL-sponsored Pilot's Associate Demonstration One project. The project developed prototypes for four avionics expert systems, with an emphasis on a crew station information manager (CSIM) system. CSIM operated on information from three supporting subsystems: a situation assessor, a mission planner, and an integration controller. These expert system (ES) prototypes were demonstrated in both a stand-alone environment on an symbolic processor and integrated with an engineering flight simulator. Some of the lessons learned during the project and potential future research directions for avionics ES are examined. >

Using a multiprocessing hybrid computer for flight simulation

A new engineering flight simulation has been implemented on an Electronic Associates, Inc. (EAI) HYSHARE 700 hybrid computer at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The computer uses a new operating system (MPX) that has both multiuser and multitasking capabilities. The computer is truly a multiprocessing analog/digital system; special inter faces drive the testing and display facilities necessary for a complex human factors simulator. The model includes many detailed subsystem models that provide the control and animation features necessary to perform human factors analysis. The model is among the most complex applications of multiprocessing in flight simulation.