Abstract

One of the important steps in Flight Management Systems (FMS) development is its testing in the dynamic environment for a specific aircraft type. While such testing is mostly performed in the actual aircraft, a more economical approach is to carry out the bulk of the testing using a laboratory-based simulated environment or test bed, for which the basis is a re-configurable, real-time flight dynamic model. Such a dynamic test bed, when used for the test and evaluation of the FMS, has three issues identified in order to provide a simulated, real time, dynamic working environment for the FMS. The first issue is a real time software representation of the specific aircraft type to generate aircraft performance data and navigation information for the FMS, and to implement the FMS navigational commands. An on-the-shelf commercial flight simulator software package from Virtual Prototypes Inc, which has a re-configurable fixed-wing aircraft six-degree aerodynamic model and a complete set of simulated aircraft systems, was chosen as the baseline for this simulation software development. The baseline software package was enhanced by developing new control laws, automatic flight control modes, robust environment models and basic navigation facility models to satisfy the test bed as an engineering tool. The second system is the interface system interfacing the FMS with the test bed. This involved the multiple processes interface software configuration and development for the interface cards and the simulation software. Finally, a graphical user interface is developed for the user to operate the test bed, including controlling the simulation and performing data acquisition. There are three issues concerned with the development of the Dynamic Test Bed, which are the system's architecture/structure, hardware, and software. This thesis is mostly devoted to the architecture/structure and software issues