> To everyone who has helped, thanks. My goal is to model the behaviors > and capabilities of the Digitrak with as much accuracy is possible > given my ability and the limitations of Flight Gear. I doubt it would > be possible or desirable to model the electrical characteristics of > the sensors or reverse engineer the actual code. The short term goal > is to model the basic behavior of the autopilot, to get the basic > modes working, then see what is possible. My long term goal is to > model the building blocks, the gyros, the magnetic compass and let > those feed into the autopilot's calculations. This will help model the > autopilot without depending on any of the other instruments. The > ultimate goal would be to model it well enough to use as a training > tool.
Just out of curiosity, have you looked at the flight control system modeling capabilities in JSBSim? I realize that limits you to JSBSim aircraft, which in itself might be a show-stopper. Also, the newest and most useful features are in the codebase which has not yet quite made it into FlightGear CVS. However, it still might be interesting for you. the JSBSim FCS model that will be [shortly?] placed into the FlightGear branch features: - Sensor modeling (for scalar values - not vectors, yet) that features some failure modes controllable via properties. - Sensors can output quantized values of arbitrary bit width. - Sensors can feature noise and drift. - The flight control system components include generic filters and an integrator. - There is a function component that can model a user-defined function that includes sine, cosine, abs, etc. functions. - Other components include summers, gains, scheduled gains, scale-mapping, switches, and kinematic controls (for modeling landing gear, aerosurfaces, etc.) You can read about the flight control system more in some of the JSBSim newsletters. I've already implemented a test autopilot. It's a lot of fun to play with. The point is that you have complete control. Just an idea. Jon _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
