PC based configurable aircraft simulation environment for dynamics and control analysis

Simulation and engineering environments are central elements of flight dynamics and control research and development tasks. Based on an analysis of such processes, the Institute of Flight Mechanics and Flight Control of Technische Universitat Miinchen is currently developing an efficient approach for a modeling and control engineering environment. The primary objective of the PC based but basically platform independent program system is to reduce the workload involved in flight dynamics research by providing simulation modules and applications that have a high potential for reusability and significantly increase the level of automation. Furthermore, it allows engineers to focus on the development of generalized problem solution strategies by reducing the amount of user interaction required for configuration specific computations. Another goal is to allow users with only limited programming experience to operate and modify the environment. Finally, the selection of computationally robust algorithms enables to embed the tool into complex processes like parametric optimizations. Quality of both, the program and the results provided by it, is also an important topic. Thus, much attention has been drawn to transparency, online integrity and error checking and to automatically monitor the numerical quality of results produced by the system. In spite of the capability of the tool to be operated on low-cost PC platforms, the system is designed to adapt configurations of all complexities - from early design studies to aircraft models of high complexity.