Flight Gear Simulation System Requirements

Running head: FLIGHT GEAR SIMULATION SYSTEM FIDELITY 1

FLIGHT GEAR SIMULATION SYSTEM FIDELITY 4

Flight Gear Simulation System Fidelity

Student’s Name

Institution: ERAU

Course: ASCI 515

Instructor’s Name: Prof. Dave Francey

Date: 8/30/2020

Flight Gear Simulation System Fidelity

Flight gear simulator was developed to imitate what the actual flight gear does. Its main aim is to perform the same functions the real flight gear does. The flight gear simulator has basic levels within which it conducts its operations as the actual flight gear. The simulator has basic levels that have improved its efficiency. Fidelity is another fundamental in simulation design that must always be incorporated. It has three elements, which are physical, functional, and cognitive fidelities. Fidelity simulations have two divisions; high or low fidelity simulation, where high fidelity simulation means a more realistic interaction between elements as in the actual aircraft. In contrast, low simulation mirrors the real actions but neglects some factors uncaptured in the simulation.

The flight gear simulator structure accepts modification and enhancement in an innovative discovery or technological development that has to be included in the system. Ganoni and Mukundan (2017) reported that the flightGear source tree is one level deep except flight data models located in their subdirectory in the FDM directory. Every directory in these flight models contains header files which are responsible for exposing its object definitions. Any other file refers to the headers directly with ease and without much frustrations and distractions. The flight gear simulator has access to the network when a command-line option is added to it. There is high-end fidelity I this level because of the complete simulation.

The FlightGear simulator execution level has packages of almost all principal distributions and several others for faster completion of installation or incorporation of prebuilt binaries. Larsen et al. (2017) maintained that the directory tree used for execution allows for customizing very many functional parts of the aircraft system. This may include current aircraft development gear systems and its scenery. Because of the development, there has been ease of adding features in the gear system using the prepackaged distribution binaries. In execution, there is high fidelity simulation since every aspect is captured in the FlightGear simulator.

Flight gear simulates the pilot's cockpit environment when some more pieces of information are compiled from subsidiary XML files. Mairaj, Baba, and Javaid (2019) identified the more details as the instrument panel layout and position, an association of keyboard keys, animation of moving aircraft surfaces, and 3D model of cockpit interior. The problem arises in simulation at this level when simulating the aircraft with a glass cockpit. The flight gear simulations have been organized at this level that it has no many limitations compared to some other previous simulators of this kind. The simulator has compass turning errors and VSI errors only. The flight gear simulating the cockpit section is effective despite its disadvantages at this level, which are yet to be solved. A lot may not be covered in the cockpit by the flight gear simulation, and therefore, the cockpit simulation is of low fidelity.

The FlightGear simulation portability is a long overdue issue. Cereceda, Rolland, and O’Young (2019) reported that the FlightGear simulator operates on specific computers, a significant challenge to portability. Soon after the simulator is modified to perform on a wide range of computer types and software, it will be fully portable. This will create efficiency in simulation anywhere that the simulation can be done.

FlightGear simulation covers a wide range of sections in the aircraft; therefore, its importance recognitions. The simulation performance can be of low fidelity or high fidelity depending on the level of simulation portrayed plus other abilities that mostly depend on the modifications.

References

Cereceda, O., Rolland, L., & O’Young, S. (2019). Giant big stik r/c uav computer model development in jsbsim for sense and avoid applications. Drones, 3(2), 48.

Ganoni, O., & Mukundan, R. (2017). A framework for visually realistic multi-robot simulation in a natural environment. arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.01938.

Larsen, A. H., Mortensen, J. J., Blomqvist, J., Castelli, I. E., Christensen, R., Dułak, M., ... & Hermes, E. D. (2017). The atomic simulation environment—a Python library for working with atoms. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 29(27), 273002.

Mairaj, A., Baba, A. I., & Javaid, A. Y. (2019). Application specific drone simulators: Recent advances and challenges. Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, 94, 100-117.