Re: [Jsbsim-devel] Roadmap & Collaboration

[Bill G. <bil...@gm...>]

Soroush,

 

Allow me to fire off the first shot, although I'm sure the team of experts
are typing stuff out as this hits the wire.

 

I champion the Airplane Datcom program. I got a copy of the source in 1996,
and have added a lot to the front and end back end to make it more user
friendly, while keeping the same basic core model. With it, I've been able
to build an airplane model in around 4 hours, and get it flying flight test
maneuvers in 30 minutes or so. Of course, I'm an expert, so your first few
models might take a little longer. However, if you are looking for some
breadth in your research, it's a great tool. I've found it to be about 90%
or more accurate for conventional aircraft in conventional flight. You can
find out more at www.holycows.net/Datcom <http://www.holycows.net/Datcom> . 

 

A few years ago, I was asked to propose a solution for an Air Traffic
Controller program. The target area was Charles de Gaulle Airport in France,
and the surrounding area. They needed up to 200 different aircraft that
could takeoff, depart the pattern and the area, and/or fly in from other
areas, enter the pattern and land, all while being controlled by ATC to do
simple maneuvers (Turn to head, descend/Climb, etc.). Datcom and JSBSim were
the perfect answer for their need. I proposed building several models in
different classes of aircraft, and allow their engineers to populate the
entire 200 aircraft from those basic models. They decided not to use my
approach, or at least not use me to do it. Don't know what they did, but
wouldn't be surprised if they stole my ideas.

 

Anywho, the major portion of that work was to come up with a tunable generic
autopilot within the scripting language of JSBSim. The functions are all the
same, just the gains are different. I've done work with the scripting
language, and while it was powerful, it could use some extensions. I've been
out of that arena for a while, so don't know if these type changes have been
made, but having functions and subroutines that can be called would be
great, in order to build the scripting language into a higher order
language. Then you would need to generate a generic autopilot for what you
need it to do (heading hold, point-to-point navigation, flying routes,
take-offs, landings, etc.)

 

Just a slight suggestion. I don't mean to offend you if this is too simple.
It might seem extremely obvious, but so people make things harder than
necessary sometimes. Start off with flat ground until you get everything
ironed out and you have something working well. Then you can apply an
irregular Earth, starting off with simple hills and valley, working your way
up to canyons with sharp drop-offs and rises. Flying into Durango and some
of the other airports in Colorado offers a lot of challenges, like
navigating through a valley while hopefully avoiding any of the brown stuff.
Some people want to jump into the hardest part first, and never recover.

 

Best of luck with your research,

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

From: Karimi, Soroush [mailto:so...@ut...] 
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 5:53 PM
To: jsb...@li...
Subject: [Jsbsim-devel] Roadmap & Collaboration

 

Hi, 

 

I hope you are all having a good day. I'm Soroush Karimi and a PhD student
at the university of Tulsa. We are a team of researchers doing research on
aircraft control systems and ground collision avoidance systems. We are
using JSBSIM in python to create our simulations. Thank you so much for all
the effort you've put into JSBSIM, It is really astonishing.

We are trying to develop models on top of JSBSIM and share it so other
researchers can also benefit from our work. I would really appreciate your
feedback on the topics below so we can get a clearer view of our next steps.

1)      Are there any current developments/upgrades to JSBSIM or any
roadmaps for future development available?

2)      How can we collaborate on the project? In terms of adding new
features, documentation or sample codes?

3)      Do you need help in any specific criteria in JSBSIM?

Thanks in advance for your time.

 

Regards,

Soroush Karimi

 


 
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