Overview

The Flight Deck Research Display Laboratory (FDDRL) is in the process of configuring a dedicated Boeing 777 cockpit simulator for use as a research platform for their work on advanced cockpit situation displays. The goal is to develop a low-cost, but highly realistic, cockpit environment, with controls that closely match those in the actual aircraft, while providing the flexibility to easily substitute an FDDRL-developed display for any of the standard pilot displays.

Click on following links to jump to sections of this document:

• Simulator Details
• Flight Deck Display and Software Instruments
• Possible Research Uses
• Related Links
  

Simulator Details
The simulator is built around a two-seat cab, fabricated for NASA by Flight Link, Inc. The cab includes functional rudder pedals, yoke, and wheel on both left and right pilot positions. The center pedestal contains the throttle quadrant, and the glare shield panel contains the switches, knobs, and indicators making up the aircraft's mode control panel. The 777 is a “glass cockpit” aircraft, meaning that the instruments, Primary Flight Display (PFD), Navigation Display (ND), Engine Indication. Crew Alerting System (EICAS) and Control Display Units (CDU), are electronic or computer generated. The simulator implements these with software programs, emulating the aircraft instruments and driving high-resolution LCD displays.

Autopilot Controls	CDU Display	Radio Controls
Yoke and Wheel Control	Brake and Rudder Control	Throttle/Flaps

The simulator is based on Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2004 (FS2004). Software developed by Flight Link reads the hardware controls and passes the values to FS2004, while similarly reading data values back for display on the hardware indicators. The software instruments also interface to FS2004, in most instances through Peter Dowson’s FSUIPC interface program.

The display system for the pilot’s out-the-window view consists of four 52-inch plasma displays, with two mounted forward of the cab and one each for the right and left views. Each display is driven by a separate computer containing a hardware-accelerated graphics card, and a separate instance of FS2004. The views and flight state information are coordinated between machines through the use of a software program called Wideview.

Flight Deck Displays and Software Instruments
The software flight deck displays come from a variety of sources, some purchased and some developed by NASA. A goal for the simulator is to host the FDDRL Advanced 3-D Cockpit Situation Display as the primary navigation display. The other instruments play a supporting role in that they contribute to the verisimilitude of the simulation as a whole. The following table lists the instrument software currently in use.

Instrument	Software	Vendor
PFD	TBD	TBD
ND	3-D CSD	NASA FDDRL
Upper Eicas	EICAS Mix	OpenCockpits
Lower Eicas	ProMFD 777 Collection	ProMFD
Backup Instruments	Custom	FDDRL
CDU	TBD	TBD

Upper Eicas Display showing engine and gear status

Low Eicas Display by ProMFD Low Eicas Display by ProMFD

Possible Research Uses
As a dedicated resource of the FDDRL, the 777 simulator has the potential to be used for a variety of research activities

• Since the simulator has positions for two pilots, studies involving crew interactions and task allocation are possible.
• The large-format out-the-window view should facilitate perception and attention based experiments.
• Once the simulator is integrated into the Airspace Operations Lab (AOL), it can be used as a functional pilot station in experiments such as DAG-TM.

Related Links

Flight Link, Inc.


Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2004


Pro MFD

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