An optimized avionics interface system for high fidelity flight simulator research

Flight simulator is among the most sophisticated semi-physical simulation systems in existence. It contains hundreds of avionics with thousands of input/output interface points, which must be amenable to frequent updates to maintain high fidelity with the ever-changing vehicle it is simulating. We proposed an optimized avionics interface system to facilitate the high fidelity flight simulator research. It uses avionics system simulation database and CAN Bus to improve the flexibility of object modelling, boost the communication reliability between host simulation computer and avionics system and decrease cockpit instruments wiring complexity. The avionics system simulation database is comprised by relational hardware resource table, data mapping table and data block table which facilitate various maintenance operations to avionics system without modifying master simulation program. Meanwhile, the adoption of CAN Bus simplifies the avionics' network connections as mounting to two common data cables which decreases communication hazard rate and wiring complexity. The experiments and performance verification are presented finally to show the feasible design to carry out high fidelity flight simulation research with high flexibility and low complexity.