Design and Implementation of a New Training Flight Simulator System

Sensors (Basel). 2022 Oct 18;22(20):7933. doi: 10.3390/s22207933.

Abstract

Aircraft flight simulators have good cost efficiency, high reusability, and high flight safety. All airlines and aircraft manufacturing companies choose it as sophisticated training equipment for ground simulation, effectively reducing pilot training costs, ensuring personnel safety and aircraft wear and tear. The new simulator proposed in this paper combines a digital motion-cueing algorithm, flight software and motion platform to make pilots feel as if they are in the real world. By using EtherCAT technology to drive the motion-cueing platform, it can improve the data transmission speed of the simulator as well as the strong anti-interference ability of communication and the control operation efficiency. Therefore, the simulated flight subjects can perform long-distance and large-angle training. Next, a set of measurement systems was established to provide monitoring items including attitude, velocity and acceleration, which can be displayed on the screen and recorded on the computer in real time and dynamically. Finally, seven training subjects were implemented to demonstrate the feasibility and correctness of the proposed method.

Keywords: FlightGear; flight simulator; measurement system; motion platform; multi-axis control.

MeSH terms

  • Acceleration
  • Aerospace Medicine*
  • Aircraft
  • Computer Simulation
  • Humans
  • Motion
  • Motion Sickness*

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.