Usefulness of flight simulator as a part of military pilots training – case study : Grob G 115E

This article examines the use of the Grob G 115E simulator (GO simulator) in Air Force elementary flight training, its technical features, and their impact on various areas of training. Questions about the use of the GO simulator will be answered through expert interviews and a user experience survey for flight instructors. In this way, the usefulness of the simulator was investigated. According to the results obtained, the GO simulator and simulator training in general are an invaluable part of flight training. The realistic cockpit environment and avionics of the GO simulator, combined with precise terrain modeling and good maneuverability, create a high-performance entity capable of meeting the requirements of basic flight training. According to the user experience of flight instructors, the simulator is excellent in its function and, above all, easy to use and reliable

Development of a Human Motor Model for the Evaluation of an Integrated Alerting and Notification Flight Deck System

A human motor model was developed on the basis of performance data that was collected in a flight simulator. The motor model is under consideration as one component of a virtual pilot model for the evaluation of NextGen crew alerting and notification systems in flight decks. This model may be used in a digital Monte Carlo simulation to compare flight deck layout design alternatives. The virtual pilot model is being developed as part of a NASA project to evaluate multiple crews alerting and notification flight deck configurations. Model parameters were derived from empirical distributions of pilot data collected in a flight simulator experiment. The goal of this model is to simulate pilot motor performance in the approach-to-landing task. The unique challenges associated with modeling the complex dynamics of humans interacting with the cockpit environment are discussed, along with the current state and future direction of the model

Computational environment for the development of an FAA compliant level 6 flight training device

A flight simulator can successfully achieve its purpose only if equipped with adequate mathematical models of the aircraft, its sub-systems, and the environment. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has instituted stringent regulations to ensure that flight simulators used for pilot training reach desirable levels of accuracy and fidelity. The purpose of this thesis is to present the development and application of a design strategy and the computational environment associated to it for building an aircraft simulation model that meets the FAA regulations for flight simulator performance. The proposed methodology is based on using flight test data in combination with analytical modeling tools and heuristics.;The Simulink simulation environment within Matlab was selected due to its recognized capabilities, flexibility, and portability. Several interactive computational tools have been developed to support the development. Flight test data of a business class jet was used for the purpose of this research effort. An important part of the proposed strategy consists of selecting the flight data and converting them into a usable format for Matlab/Simulink. Parameter identification techniques must then be applied at specific points in the flight envelope of the aircraft in order to create an accurate flight dynamics model. Two such modeling techniques, in time and frequency domain, were used within this project. Lookup tables for the stability and control derivatives were built based on dynamic pressure. Tuning of the aerodynamic model is required to meet all FAA criteria. Once the FAA objective tests were completed, another more organic set of tests were conducted by pilots. The outcomes of these subjective tests were analyzed and additional tuning of the aerodynamic and dynamic model were performed accordingly. Eventually, compliance with both FAA objective and subjective tests is ensured through several tuning iterations and demonstrated

Exploring VR with PilotEdge in a University Part 141 Environment

Flight Simulators have become an integral part of the part 141 training environment. Reliance on flight simulators has only increased in recent years as the pilot shortage has increased the utilization rate on training airplanes. At the same time, demands by flight schools and universities have all but assured that training airplane production has lagged behind the needs of the industry. The ability to simulate an accurate replica of a cockpit of an advanced airplane has long been desired as aviation training is inherently problematic from an educational psychology perspective. Airplanes are loud, cramped, and operationally can be cost prohibitive. All of these factors lead to a desire for more advanced, cheap, and educationally beneficial flight simulators. Early simulators such as the Link Trainer operated pneumatically. As computers became more readily available, the focus centered on software modeling a graphical representation of the yoke. At the aviation education level, full scale mockups of regional and mainline jets are in most serious Part 141 collegiate based flight schools. Today, Virtual Reality (VR) is entering the mainstream vernacular after being a subcomponent of the larger gaming community and is showing potential to disrupt the typical flight simulator model of a traditional full mockup of a cockpit. Many flight simulators such as Microsoft\u27s Flight Simulator X and X-Plane are incorporating Virtual Reality. Additionally, many leading producers of after-market airplane models for the aforementioned flight simulators. In this research, undergraduate students pursuing a Restricted Airline Transport License were each given specified hours of flight training in a flight simulator with Virtual Reality. The students were told to conduct training flights utilizing the PilotEdge software, which offers a high-fidelity simulator of interaction with Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel within the National Airspace Systems. The purpose of this qualitative and quantitative exploratory research is to gauge interest of student pilots in using VR in flight simulators. A second purpose of this research was to gauge the effectiveness of VR technology in their current state with differing software platforms (ie., Flight Simulator X, X-Plane, etc). A purpose of this presentation is to explore with fellow aviation faculty and research the benefits and drawbacks of particular software from the viewpoint of both the researchers and future aviation professionals

PRISE: An Integrated Platform for Research and Teaching of Critical Embedded Systems

In this paper, we present PRISE, an integrated workbench for Research and Teaching of critical embedded systems at ISAE, the French Institute for Space and Aeronautics Engineering. PRISE is built around state-of-the-art technologies for the engineering of space and avionics systems used in Space and Avionics domain. It aims at demonstrating key aspects of critical, real-time, embedded systems used in the transport industry, but also validating new scientific contributions for the engineering of software functions. PRISE combines embedded and simulation platforms, and modeling tools. This platform is available for both research and teaching. Being built around widely used commercial and open source software; PRISE aims at being a reference platform for our teaching and research activities at ISAE

Real-Time Distributed Aircraft Simulation through HLA

This paper presents some ongoing researches carried out in the context of the PRISE (Research Platform for Embedded Systems Engineering) Project. This platform has been designed to evaluate and validate new embedded system concepts and techniques through a special hardware and software environment. Since many actual embedded equipments are not available, their corresponding behavior is simulated using the HLA architecture, an IEEE standard for distributed simulation, and a Run-time infrastructure called CERTI and developed at ONERA. HLA is currently largely used in many simulation applications, but the limited performances of the RTIs raises doubts over the feasibility of HLA federations with real-time requirements. This paper addresses the problem of achieving real-time performances with HLA. Several experiments are discussed using well-known aircraft simulators such as the Microsoft Flight Simulator, FlightGear, and X-plane connected with the CERTI Run-time Infrastructure. The added value of these activities is to demonstrate that according to a set of innovative solutions, HLA is well suited to achieve hard real time constraints

FlightGoggles: A Modular Framework for Photorealistic Camera, Exteroceptive Sensor, and Dynamics Simulation

FlightGoggles is a photorealistic sensor simulator for perception-driven robotic vehicles. The key contributions of FlightGoggles are twofold. First, FlightGoggles provides photorealistic exteroceptive sensor simulation using graphics assets generated with photogrammetry. Second, it provides the ability to combine (i) synthetic exteroceptive measurements generated in silico in real time and (ii) vehicle dynamics and proprioceptive measurements generated in motio by vehicle(s) in a motion-capture facility. FlightGoggles is capable of simulating a virtual-reality environment around autonomous vehicle(s). While a vehicle is in flight in the FlightGoggles virtual reality environment, exteroceptive sensors are rendered synthetically in real time while all complex extrinsic dynamics are generated organically through the natural interactions of the vehicle. The FlightGoggles framework allows for researchers to accelerate development by circumventing the need to estimate complex and hard-to-model interactions such as aerodynamics, motor mechanics, battery electrochemistry, and behavior of other agents. The ability to perform vehicle-in-the-loop experiments with photorealistic exteroceptive sensor simulation facilitates novel research directions involving, e.g., fast and agile autonomous flight in obstacle-rich environments, safe human interaction, and flexible sensor selection. FlightGoggles has been utilized as the main test for selecting nine teams that will advance in the AlphaPilot autonomous drone racing challenge. We survey approaches and results from the top AlphaPilot teams, which may be of independent interest.Comment: Initial version appeared at IROS 2019. Supplementary material can be found at https://flightgoggles.mit.edu. Revision includes description of new FlightGoggles features, such as a photogrammetric model of the MIT Stata Center, new rendering settings, and a Python AP

The integrated dynamic land use and transport model MARS

Cities worldwide face problems like congestion or outward migration of businesses. The involved transport and land use interactions require innovative tools. The dynamic Land Use and Transport Interaction model MARS (Metropolitan Activity Relocation Simulator) is part of a structured decision making process. Cities are seen as self organizing systems. MARS uses Causal Loop Diagrams from Systems Dynamics to explain cause and effect relations. MARS has been benchmarked against other published models. A user friendly interface has been developed to support decision makers. Its usefulness was tested through workshops in Asia. This paper describes the basis, capabilities and uses of MARS