Stock Flight Systems

EDGE Compiler Powered by Microtec Helps Make Flying Smarter

The Institute of Flight Mechanics and Flight Control of the Technical University Munich performs research in the fields of flight dynamics, simulation, control and guidance. In the last few years, new approaches for cost-effective, high-fidelity flight simulation have been developed that have gained high acceptance in research institutes and companies.

New Research Flight Simulator of the Institute of Flight Mechanics and Flight Control

In recent years, a new research flight simulator has been developed at the Institute of Flight Mechanics and Flight Control of the Technical University Munich. The main focus was to reduce the expenses required for high-fidelity flight simulation without abandoning quality and performance. Furthermore, the approach aimed at a modular, flexible and extendible architecture and at a solution shortening the development cycle from concept to its practical assessment by manned simulation.

The new simulator resembles a future transport aircraft cockpit with side-stick controls, large landscape format screens with line select keys, a generic mode control panel, modern cursor control devices and many other state-of-the art features.

The cockpit hardware communicates with the PC-based simulation computers via a CANaerospace network. CANaerospace is an extension of the well known and distributed CAN bus, accounting for the increased safety demands of aerospace applications. On the cockpit side, the CANaerospace bus is connected to four Network Extended Control System (NECS) compact microcontroller computers. These computers offer a large variety of interfacing capabilities with the cockpit hardware including A/D and D/A conversion, stepper motor control, a serial peripheral interface, a time processing unit and others. Using these features, it is not only easy and straight forward to connect all cockpit systems to the simulation computers, but also to perform many cockpit system-related tasks on a local level near the related system hardware, reducing inter-component wiring to the CANaerospace cables. The NECS microcontrollers are manufactured and distributed by Stock Flight Systems and Reiser Systemtechnik.

The new flight simulator is currently employed in multiple research projects on tunnel-in-the-sky displays, nonlinear adaptive flight control and flight simulation. The new technologies developed for the simulator have found broad acceptance at research institutes and in the aerospace industry. The Mentor Graphics EDGE Compiler proved ideally suited to this application.