There are many 6 degree of freedom aircraft flight simulations. If you are new to a given simulation package, you are left with the challenge of understanding how to use it correctly. Further, when simulation results are obtained, one is often forced to trust the simulation without knowledge of code verification. In this series, we create a flight simulation from the ground up, that is a new clean sheet design. This will allow us to understand the "nuts and bolts" of the simulation in detail with careful and systematic verification.
The textbook for this series is Stevens, Lewis, and Johnson, "Aircraft Control and Simulation: Dynamics, Controls Design, and Autonomous Systems, 3rd Edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. The simulation will be coded in Python.
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Learn the basic structure of an aircraft flight simulation, some potential uses, components, and important considerations when developing a new simulation.
Learn the aircraft six degree of freedom equations of motion and how to code them in Python.
Learn how aircraft attitude is capture with Euler angles and modeled with the Euler kinematic equations.
Learn how to model aircraft position, aerodynamic forces, and the atmosphere. Initial verification is performed by dropping spheres from high altitude.
Learn how to verify your simulation with NASA 6-DOF check cases, how to model aerodyanmic damping, and the route to visualize your simulation results in FlightGear.
Learn about the systems that are relevant to the flight control of the X-15, including mission, outer mold line, control effectors, propulsion, air data systems, the stability augmentation system, and the MH-96 adaptive control system.
Learn how a stability augmentation system can improve the handling qualities of the X-15, allowing the pilot to focus on the mission.
Learn how to create an aerodynamic model for an aircraft and incorporate it into a flight simulation, using the X-15 as an example.
Learn aircraft trim for 6-DOF modeling and simulation, including motivations, definition, optimization to solve for trim states, and example trim cases.
Learn how to formulate an approach to control design for an aircraft from open loop analysis of linear systems. Learn trim, linearization, and modal analysis.