On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:45:17 -0500, Curtis wrote in message <ef5fc9920907221245u47c4d0eav64092a09ea25b...@mail.gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 12:17 PM, Christopher G. Prince > <ch...@cprince.com>wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > We're working on a project to feed back information about airflow on > > a wing to the pilots skin (tactile feedback). Our project web page > > is here-- > > http://www.d.umn.edu/~cprince/PubRes/FbF/<http://www.d.umn.edu/%7Ecprince/PubRes/FbF/> > > Right now, we're pretty early in progress and working with > > simulated wings. I've started using XPlane to provide a simulation > > of wing airflow sensors-- by tapping into its simulation of lifting > > forces on the aircraft wing. Can Flight Gear do something similar? > > Can I get an array of data on lifting forces over the wing back > > from the simulator, in real time? > > > > (I've looked through the flight gear manual some, and through the > > flight model docs some and can't see what I'm looking for). > > > Hi Chris, > > FlightGear includes a couple different approaches to modeling the > physics of flight, but I don't think anything we have closely matches > the x-plane approach. (Every approach has it's strengths and > weaknesses, and the X-Plane approach is interesting as a very coarse > grained virtual wind tunnel that can predict some things about how an > airframe might fly, and some of the data that comes out of this > approach could be interesting ... especially in your case. That > said, the X-plane approach only takes you a certain distance down the > path, and if you are trying to match the known performance numbers of > a known airframe, you might have to learn a little voodoo to make > that happen in x-plane.) > > I glanced through some of the information on your site and I like > this idea of exploring tactile feedback for flying. In a past life I > worked for with a human factors research group at UMN Twin Cities > campus and we did some experiments with providing tactile feed back > as a warning system for when you are drifting out of your lane, or > approaching an upcoming corner too quickly. In our case we had a > vibration system in the seat that could vibrate the left or right > sides independently (for a lane warning) or both together for a "too > fast" warning. We've also experimented with having the steering > wheel give some force to push you back towards the center of your > lane, and also with having the accelerator pedal push back on your > foot if you are getting too close to the car ahead. So using tactile > feedback like this as a warning system makes sense to me. > > Providing tactile feedback for the feeling of flight is more > nebulous. I'm still trying to think that all through. It sounds > like you will be using pressure sensors on the wing, so you need to > figure out a system in the simulator that simulates the pressure that > the sensors would see, not so much the forces. I have no idea if > that's possible in FlightGear, but maybe some of our flight dynamics > engineers will chime in if they have any ideas. > > If you want to measure force, then perhaps you could mount some > accelerometers out on the wings? That might be easier to simulate (or > estimate) in software. I know that JSBSim has the capability of > reporting accelerations at some offset location on the airframe, but > I don't know if it supports more than one offset accelerometer? > > I'm still trying to imagine how the tactile feedback will feel and > how that will conceptually tie in with what the aircraft is doing. ..I keep getting this hairy image of servo horns glued to all of it... ;oD > Would you try to make the air pressure on your individual arms match > the air pressure on the wings? I suppose a pilot could get his head > around that and learn what different phase of flight feel like. > > Good luck on your project, it sounds like fun! :-) > > Curt. -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;o) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
