Image generator host is the interface of the host computer systemof a flight simulator to its image generator. Image generator host, updates positions of the entities by sending operational codes to the image generator. Positional data of the entities is pipelined by tactic interface of the simulator at host update rate. A network jitter, latency, packet loss or inadequate bandwidth may disturb the smoothness of this pipelined entity information packets. This study presents an algorithm for the host system of a flight simulator, intending to minimize model flickering in the image generator display output.

The problem of real-time simulation of ocean surface waves, ship movement and the coupling in between is tackled, and a number of different methods are covered and discussed. Among these methods, the finite volume method has been implemented in an attempt to solve the problem, along with the compressible Euler equations, an octree based staggered grid which allows for easy adaptive mesh refinement, the volume of fluid method and a variant of the Hyper-C advection scheme for compressible flows for advection of the phase fraction field. The process of implementing the methods that were chosen proved to be tricky in many ways, as they involve a large number of advanced topics, and the implementation that was implemented in this thesis work suffered from numerous issues. There were for example problems with keeping the interface intact, as well as a harsh restriction on the time step size due to the CFL condition. Improvements required to make the method sustainable for real-time applications are discussed, and a few suggestions on alternative approaches that are already in use for similar purposes are also given and discussed. Furthermore, a method for compensating for gain/loss of mass when solving the incompressible flow equations with an inaccurately solved pressure Poisson equation is presented and discussed. A momentum conservative method for transporting the velocity field on staggered grids without introducing unnecessary smearing is also presented and implemented. A simple, physically based illumination model for sea surfaces is derived, discussed and compared to the Blinn–Phong shading model, although it is never implemented. Finally, a two-dimensional partial differential equation in the spatial domain for simulating water surface waves for mildly varying bottom topography is derived and discussed, although it is deemed to be too slow for real-time purposes and is therefore never implemented. / <p>This publication differs from the printed version of the report in the sense that links are blue in this version and black in the printed version.</p>

Currently, it is uncertain how well a typical ground-based simulator's hexapod motion system can simulate the aggressive motion during airplane upset. To address this issue, this thesis attempts to improve simulator motion for upset recovery simulation by defining new motion fidelity criteria, implementing body frame filtering, and improving an existing adaptive motion drive algorithm. The successfully improved adaptive algorithm was used to conduct a paired comparison experiment to study the effects of trade-offs between translational and rotational motion cues on pilot subjective fidelity and upset recovery performance. Analysis of the experimental data found that pilots generally rejected motion with false lateral cues and they preferred the presence of rotational cues for moderate roll angles. Also, performance analysis suggested that roll cues helped improve lateral control. Overall, pilots preferred to have simulator motion during upset simulation and significant improvements in performance were observed when simulator motion was present.

This thesis involves modeling, guidance, control, and flight simulations of a canard controlled guided missile. The autopilot is designed by a pole placement technique. Designed autopilot is used with the guidance systems considered in the thesis. Five different guidance methods are applied in the thesis, one of which is the famous proportional navigation guidance. The other four guidance methods are different fuzzy logic guidance systems designed considering different types of guidance inputs. Simulations are done against five different target types and the performances of the five guidance methods are compared and discussed.

The technology of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) has developed since its conception many years ago. UAVs have several features such as, computerised and autonomous control without the need for an on-board pilot. Therefore, there is no risk of loss of life and they are easier to maintain than manned aircraft. In addition, UAVs have an extended range/endurance capability, sometimes for several days. This makes UAVs attractive for missions that are typically

Thesis (M. App. Sc.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-144). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Researchers have long known that general aviation (GA) aircraft exhibit some of the most intense and potentially damaging sound environments to a pilot's hearing. Yet, another potentially more ominous result of this noise-intense environment is the masking of the radio communications. Radio communications must remain intelligible, as they are imperative to the safe and efficient functioning of the airspace, especially the airspace surrounding our busiest airports, Class B and Class C. However, the high amplitude, low frequency noise dominating the GA cockpit causes an upward spreading of masking with such inference that it renders radio communications almost totally unintelligible, unless the pilot is wearing a communications headset. Even with a headset, some researchers have stated that the noise and masking effects overcome the headset performance and still threaten the pilot's hearing and overall safety while in the aircraft. In reaction to this situation, this experiment sought to investigate the effects which active noise reduction (ANR) headsets have on the permissible exposure levels (PELs), speech intelligibility, workload, and ultimately the pilot's performance inside the cockpit. Eight instrument-rated pilot participants flew through different flight tasks of varying levels and types of workload embedded in four 3.5 hour flight scenarios while wearing four different headsets. The 3.5 hours were considered long duration due the instrument conditions, severe weather conditions, difficult flight tasks, and the fatiguing effects of a high intensity noise environment. The noise intensity and spectrum in the simulator facility were specifically calibrated to mimic those of a Cessna 172. Speech intelligibility of radio communications was modified using the Speech Transmission Index (STI), while measures of flight performance and workload were collected to examine any relationships between workload, speech intelligibility, performance, and type of headset. It is believed that the low frequency attenuation advantages afforded by the ANR headset decreased the signal-to-noise ratio, thereby increasing speech intelligibility for the pilot. This increase may positively affect workload and flight performance. Estimates of subjective preference and comfort were also collected and analyzed for relevant relationships. The results of the experiment supported the above hypotheses. It was found that headsets which incorporate ANR technology do increase speech intelligibility which has a direct inverse influence on workload. For example, an increase in speech intelligibility is seen with a concomitant decrease in pilot workload across all types and levels of workload. Furthermore, flight task performance results show that the pilot's headset can facilitate safer flight performance. However, the factors that influence performance are more numerous and complex than those that affect speech intelligibility or workload. Factors such as the operational performance of the communications system in the headset, in addition to the ANR technology, were determined to be highly influential factors in pilot performance. This study has concluded that the pilot's headset has received much research and design attention as a noise attenuation device. However, it has been almost completely overlooked as a tool which could be used to facilitate the safety and performance of a general aviation flight. More research should focus on identifying and optimizing the headset components which contribute most to the results demonstrated in this experiment. The pilot's headset is a component of the aviation system which could economically improve the safety of the entire system. / Ph. D.

Due to economic and operational constraints, there is an increasing demand from aviation operators and training manufacturers to extract maximum training usage from the lower fidelity suite of flight simulators. It is possible to augment low-fidelity flight simulators to achieve equivalent performance compared to high-fidelity setups but at reduced cost and greater mobility. In particular for visual manoeuvres, the virtual reality technique of head-tracking amplification for virtual view control enables full field-of-regard access even with limited field-of-view displays. This research quantified the effects of this technique on piloting performance, workload and simulator sickness by applying it to a fixed-base, low-fidelity, low-cost flight simulator. In two separate simulator trials, participants had to land a simulated aircraft from a visual traffic circuit pattern whilst scanning for airborne traffic. Initially, a single augmented display was compared to the common triple display setup in front of the pilot. Starting from the base leg, pilots exhibited tighter turns closer to the desired ground track and were more actively conducting visual scans using the augmented display. This was followed up by a second experiment to quantify the scalability of augmentation towards larger displays and field of views. Task complexity was increased by starting the traffic pattern from the downwind leg. Triple displays in front of the pilot yielded the best compromise delivering flight performance and traffic detection scores just below the triple projectors but without an increase in track deviations and the pilots were also less prone to simulator sickness symptoms. This research demonstrated that head augmentation yields clear benefits of quick user adaptation, low-cost, ease of systems integration, together with the capability to negate the impact of display sizes yet without incurring significant penalties in workload and incurring simulator sickness. The impact of this research is that it facilitates future flight training solutions using this augmentation technique to meet budgetary and mobility requirements. This enables deployment of simulators in large numbers to deliver expanded mission rehearsal previously unattainable within this class of low-fidelity simulators, and with no restrictions for transfer to other training media.

A new rotor dynamic wake distortion model, which can be used to account for the rotor transient wake distortion effect on inflow across the rotor disk during helicopter maneuvering and transitional flight in both hover and forward flight conditions, is developed. The dynamic growths of the induced inflow perturbation across the rotor disk during different transient maneuvers, such as a step pitch or roll rate, a step climb rate and a step change of advance ratio are investigated by using a dynamic vortex tube analysis. Based on the vortex tube results, a rotor dynamic wake distortion model, which is expressed in terms of a set of ordinary differential equations, with rotor longitudinal and lateral wake curvatures, wake skew and wake spacing as states, is developed. Also, both the Pitt-Peters dynamic inflow model and the Peters-He finite state inflow model for axial or forward flight are augmented to account for rotor dynamic wake distortion effect during helicopter maneuvering flight. To model the aerodynamic interaction among main rotor, tail rotor and empennage caused by rotor wake curvature effect during helicopter maneuvering flight, a reduced order model based on a vortex tube analysis is developed. Both the augmented Pitt-Peters dynamic inflow model and the augmented Peters-He finite state inflow model, combined with the developed dynamic wake distortion model, together with the interaction model are implemented in a generic helicopter simulation program of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the simulated vehicle control responses in both time domain and frequency domain are compared with flight test data of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in both hover and low speed forward flight conditions.

In recent years, more and more light aircraft enter our daily life, from Agricultural applications, emergency rescue, flight experiment and training to Barriers to entry, light aircraft always have their own advantages. Thus, they have become more and more popular. However, in the process of GDP research about Flight Control System design for the Flying Crane, the author read a lot of literature about Flight Control System design, then noticed that the research in Flight Control System have apparently neglected to Low-cost vehicles. So it is necessary to do some study about Flight Control System for this kind of airplane. The study will more concern the control law design for ultra-light aircraft, the author hopes that with an ‘intelligence’ Flight Control System design, this kind of aircraft could sometimes perform flying tasks according to a prearranged flight path and without a pilot. As the Piper J-3 cub is very popular and the airframe data can be obtained more easily, it was selected as an objective aircraft for the control law design. Finally, a ¼ scale Piper J-3 cub model is selected and the aerodynamics coefficients are calculated by DATCOM and AVL. Based on the forces and moments acting on the aircraft, the trim equilibrium was calculated for getting proper dynamics coefficients for the selected flight conditions. With the aircraft aerodynamics coefficients, the aircraft dynamics characteristics and flying qualities are also analyzed. The model studied in this thesis cannot answer level one flying qualities in the longitudinal axis, which is required by MIL-F- 8785C. The stability augment system is designed to improve the flying qualities of the longitudinal axis. The work for autopilot design in this thesis includes five parts. First, the whole flight profile is designed to automatically control aircraft from takeoff to landing. Second, takeoff performance and guidance law is studied. Then, landing performance and trajectory is also investigated. After that, the control law design is decoupled into longitudinal axis and later-directional axis. Finally, simulation is executed to check the performance for the auto-controller.