FSDeveloper Wiki - User contributions [en-gb]

Remote connection

2007-06-06T05:53:50Z

Jcboliveira:

In vista

In your server machine (the one with FSX)

1 - Unhide folders and files in control panel; Uncheck: Hide known extensions

2 - locate the C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX
username is your login name

3 - Create a SimConnect.xml file with this content

Code:
<pre><?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>

<SimBase.Document Type="SimConnect" version="1,0">
<Descr>SimConnect</Descr>
<Filename>SimConnect.xml</Filename>
<Disabled>False</Disabled>
<SimConnect.Comm>
<Disabled>False</Disabled>
<Protocol>IPv4</Protocol>
<Scope>global</Scope>
<Address>addr1</Address>
<MaxClients>64</MaxClients>
<Port>Port1</Port>
<MaxRecvSize>4096</MaxRecvSize>
<DisableNagle>False</DisableNagle>
</SimConnect.Comm>
</SimBase.Document></pre>
addr1 is your machine IP. You can open a command prompt and run the command ipconfig. Look for the line IPV4 address the addr is there.

Port1: Choose any port above 1024, do not use 8080

In your client machine

1 - Install simconnect (Default location for setup is: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\lib) copy setup for client machine

2 - create a C:\Users\Username\Documents\SimConnect.cfg
username is your login name
The content of the cfg file is:

<pre>[SimConnect]
Protocol=IPv4
Address=addr1
Port=Port
MaxReceiveSize=4096
DisableNagle=0 </pre>

addr1 - See above it should match
Port - See above it should match
__________________
[[category:SimConnect]]

Remote connection

2007-06-06T05:51:44Z

Jcboliveira:

In vista

In your server machine (the one with FSX)

1 - Unhide folders and files in control panel; Uncheck: Hide known extensions

2 - locate the C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX
username is your login name

3 - Create a SimConnect.xml file with this content

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="Windows-1252"?>

<SimBase.Document Type="SimConnect" version="1,0">
<Descr>SimConnect</Descr>
<Filename>SimConnect.xml</Filename>
<Disabled>False</Disabled>
<SimConnect.Comm>
<Disabled>False</Disabled>
<Protocol>IPv4</Protocol>
<Scope>global</Scope>
<Address>addr1</Address>
<MaxClients>64</MaxClients>
<Port>Port1</Port>
<MaxRecvSize>4096</MaxRecvSize>
<DisableNagle>False</DisableNagle>
</SimConnect.Comm>
</SimBase.Document>addr1 is your machine IP. You can open a command prompt and run the command ipconfig. Look for the line IPV4 address the addr is there.

Port1: Choose any port above 1024, do not use 8080

In your client machine

1 - Install simconnect (Default location for setup is: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\lib) copy setup for client machine

2 - create a C:\Users\Username\Documents\SimConnect.cfg
username is your login name
The content of the cfg file is:

[SimConnect]
Protocol=IPv4
Address=addr1
Port=Port
MaxReceiveSize=4096
DisableNagle=0

addr1 - See above it should match
Port - See above it should match
__________________
[[category:SimConnect]]

Cameras Views - Changing

2006-10-29T07:44:13Z

Jcboliveira: Change camera views by using flt files

= Introduction =

The FSX SDK has detailed instructions for camera definitions, however, isn’t easy to find the right eye view. The saved flight stores the eye view and can be used to find out what are the values for aircraft.cfg entries.

= How to =

== Create a test camera ==

In the aircraft.cfg create a test camera

<pre>
[CameraDefinition.0]
Title = "test"
Guid = {AFA06A0A-7341-4b1f-B486-CE3778336276}
Origin = Virtual Cockpit
MomentumEffect = Yes
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = None
ShowAxis = YES
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 0.75
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ZoomPanScalar = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Cockpit
PitchPanRate=20
HeadingPanRate=60
InitialXyz=0, 0, 0.
InitialPbh=0, 0, 0
</pre>

Note that the InitialXyz and InitialPbh are 0

== Change the eye view ==
Using FSX view pan and rotate commands, position the camera in the direction that you want. Save a flight with the changed eye view position.

== Change the aircraft.cfg camera definition ==
Open the flight flt file it in notepad. Scroll in to the cameras sections and look for the camera with the CameraDefinition GUID. The camera numbers in the flt will not match the camera definition numbers, the GUID is the only way that you have to find the correct entry. The window.1 entry will also reflect the camera GUID in CurrentCamera line.

<pre>
[Camera.1.3]
Guid={AFA06A0A-7341-4B1F-B486-CE3778336276}
Zoom=0.75
Translation=0, 0, 0.26635062694549561
Rotation=26.531982421875, 32.49755859375, 0
</pre>

Using Flt camera definition you can change aircraft.cfg camera definition parameters by using the following translation table:

Zoom -> InitialZoom

Translation -> InitialXyz

Rotation -> InitialPbh. The correspondence isn’t correct. The flt saves Pitch, Heading, bank and the aircraft.cfg needs pitch, bank, heading so there is the need to change the position for the last two values.

The final CameraDefinition.0 will be

<pre>
[CameraDefinition.0]
Title = "test"
Guid = {AFA06A0A-7341-4b1f-B486-CE3778336276}
Origin = Virtual Cockpit
MomentumEffect = Yes
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
Track = None
ShowAxis = YES
AllowZoom = TRUE
InitialZoom = 0.75
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ZoomPanScalar = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Cockpit
PitchPanRate=20
HeadingPanRate=60
InitialXyz=0, 0, 0.26635062694549561.
InitialPbh=26.531982421875, 0, 32.49755859375
</pre>

--[[User:jcboliveira|jcboliveira]]

[[category:Aircraft design]]

Autopilot creation

2006-10-04T07:09:01Z

Jcboliveira:

This is a Bachelor thesis that deals with aircraft autopilots using FS as a bed test. It shows how to tune a PID using several methods. The methods can be used to tune FS standard autopilot but in this case a separated one was made. The reader needs some Laplace transform knowledge to follow the equations but I believe that basic Mathematical analysis and the graphs will be enough to understand.

The author is Andrea Saccomanno and myself as tutor.

[http://jcboliveira.name/autopilot.pdf Autopilot.pdf]

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

CHAPTER 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.2 Principles of flight control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1.3 Flight control surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.3.1 Fighter aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

1.3.2 Commercial aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.4 Flight control systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1.4.1 Mechanical systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1.4.2 Hydromechanical systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

1.4.3 Fly-by-wire systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

1.5 Aircraft navigation and positioning systems . . . . . . . . . 19

1.5.1 Global Positioning System (GPS) . . . . . . . . . . . 20

1.5.2 Autopilot systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

CHAPTER 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.2 Control Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.2.1 Open-Loop (Feedforward) Control Systems . . . . . . . 27

2.2.2 Closed-Loop (Feedback) Control Systems . . . . . . . . 27

2.2.3 System Transfer Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

2.3 Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) Controller . . . . . . . 29

2.3.1 Basic modes of a PID algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.3.2 Proportional (P) algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.3.3 Proportional Integral (PI) algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . 31

2.3.4 Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) algorithm . . . . . . 32

2.3.5 Effects of Proportional, Integral and Derivative action . . . 33

2.3.5.1 Windup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.3.5.2 Setpoint limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2.3.5.3 Incremental Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

2.3.5.4 Back-calculation and Tracking . . . . . . . . . 39

2.3.5.5 Controllers with a Tracking Mode . . . . . . . . 42

2.3.6 PID Tuning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.3.6.1 Ziegler-Nichols Methods . . . . . . . . . . . 46

2.3.6.2 Cohen-Coon Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

CHAPTER 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3.2 Autopilot specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3.2.1 Heading controller specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

3.2.2 Altitude controller specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

3.2.3 GPS Navigation controller specifications . . . . . . . . . 54

3.3 Autopilot design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

3.3.1 Microsoft® Flight Simulator and the plug-in FSUIPC . . . . 55

3.3.2 The function Plotter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

3.3.3 Heading controller design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

3.3.4 Altitude controller design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

3.3.5 GPS navigation controller design . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

3.4 Controller implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3.4.1 The function lateral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

3.4.2 The function longitudinal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

3.4.3 The function navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

CHAPTER 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4.2 Experiment description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

4.2.1 Test #1: lateral controller testing . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

4.2.2 Test #2: longitudinal controller testing . . . . . . . . . . 98

4.2.3 Test #3: navigation controller testing . . . . . . . . . . 124

4.2.4 Test #4: lateral + longitudinal controllers testing . . . . . . 132

4.2.5 Test #5: navigation + longitudinal controllers testing . . . . 141

CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

APPENDIX A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

[[category:Aircraft design]]

Autopilot creation

2006-10-04T00:03:26Z

Jcboliveira: