Paper Info
Title
Implementation of a Flight Control Tower Simulator using Commercial Off-the-shelf Hardware
Abstract
Simulation is an effective training method for air traffic control to ensure the safety and efficiency of the aviation industry, which is growing quickly. In this paper, the key techniques are explored in the implementation of a cost-effective approach to constructing a flight control tower simulator using commodities. A client/server styled architecture is proposed to divide the system into subsystems, and a process model is abstracted to describe the high-level process of the system. Finite state machines (FSMs) and a primitiveâ聙聰command interaction mechanism are proposed for efficient behavior representation and flexible control of the simulated entities (which are encapsulated into a computing kernel component to handle the real-time computation and interaction), respectively, resulting in higher maintainability and extensibility. Parallel rendering based on a PC cluster and image warping and edge blending algorithms are explored to generate virtual tower out-the-window scenes of ultra-high resolutions and seamless tiled displays on a cylindrical screen, respectively; thus the special hardware is replaced with commercial off-the-shelf hardware to achieve much lower cost and higher maintainability. With these techniques, a flight control tower simulator based on COTS hardware has been implemented and employed to train some tower controllers in China.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1177/0037549709347914
Simulation
Keywords
DocType
Volume
virtual tower out-the-window scene,flexible control,Commercial Off-the-shelf Hardware,air traffic control,special hardware,COTS hardware,higher maintainability,flight control tower simulator,tower controller,command interaction mechanism,Flight Control Tower Simulator,commercial off-the-shelf hardware
Journal
86
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
2
0037-5497
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.38
6
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Mo Shifeng120.78
Wang Danxia210.38