Flight Simulation
Lecture: Wednesday, 16.00-18.00 (Sal 104),
Exercise: Wednesday, 18.00-20.00 (Sal 104+137)
First lecture is on 05.10.2016.
Students are expected to attend the lectures
and the exercises. Exercises are checked and graded!
Prerequisites
You must know basics of differential calculus, linear algebra,
mechanics, and computer graphics. You must be good at C++.
This is a serious course, involving a lot of mathematics!
Topics
First five lectures: Differential equations.
Numerical methods for solving differential
equations. Order of a numerical method. Runge-Kutta Methods.
We apply RK methods to orbits, Lagrange points, and
rocket trajectories.
Analytic solutions of systems of linear differential equations.
Qualitative behavior of solutions.
Next two lectures: Basics of mechanics. The notions of
mass center, torque (moment), and momentum.
Definition of rigid body. Derivation of laws for rigid body
movement.
Two lectures:
Properties of airfoils. Typical lift/drag curves.
Notion of aerodynamic center, and its importance
for stability. Theory of longitudinal stability.
Kutta-Joukowski law: Lift = Uniform Flow X Circulation.
One lecture: Representation of orientation by quaternions.
Role of quaternions in simulation and computer graphics.
One/two lectures:
Application of rigid-body laws to airplanes. Theory of
stability in three dimensions. The four stability modes.
How to enhance stability with automatic controls.
(Autopilots.)
One lecture:
Detecting contacts with the ground or other objects.
There exist collisions and there exist
controlled ground contacts. In order to be able to simulate
landings and take offs, one need to detect when the airplane
touches the ground, in which way it touches the ground,
and what forces these contacts create.
One lecture:
Modelling of wheels.
SFML (Simple and Fast Multimedia Library)
I use SFML as Window Manager, and as interface to OpenGL.
SMFL can be obtained from here .
You need version 2.0 or higher. Installing SFML in
Ubuntu is easy, because it has the correct version in
the package manager. Unfortunately, Debian still has version 1.6.
The differences are not big, but they are irritating, so try to get
version 2.0 or later.
Open GL
SFML supports computer graphics through OpenGL.
The
homepage of Andrzej Lukaszewski
contains a lot of pointers to openGL.
The
Red Book
used to be the main source for learning OpenGL.
It is outdated, because the
standard commands are now deprecated, and one should use
shading language.
Even when the commands in the Red Book are outdated, the algorithms
are still valid, so it is still useful to look at the first 5 sections.
Lectures
Exercises
-
Exercise
0 is due on 12.10.2016.
-
Exercise list 1.
(I updated it, but it is not changed.)
Deadline is 19.10.2016.
-
Exercise list 2.
This exercise must be handed in on 26.10.2016.
-
Exercise list 3,
which must be handed in on 16.11.2016.
-
Exercise list 4,
which must be handed in on 23.11.2016.
(You need this drawing.)
-
Exercise list 5,
which must be handed in on 30.12.2016.
You need page 416/417
from A.C. Kermode, Mechanics of Flight.
-
Exercise list 6,
which must be handed in on 07.12.2016,
(one week later.)
-
Exercise list 7,
which must be shown on 11.01.2017 in
Lab 137.
You need this code.
-
Exercise list 8.
You need this
two dimensional simulation.
This is the last exercise.
flatland2017 also contains the code for rigid object simulation
in three dimensions that was shown on 11.01.2017.
Grading
Please note that the slides of the
last lecture are online and completed. It is not forbidden to read them,
even when the course is officially over.
Grade calculations,
current point status.
Deadline for final project is feb 15th 2017.
Literature
-
Mechanics of Flight, A.C. Kermode, 11th Edition,
(Revised and Edited by R.H.Barnard and D.R.Philpott)
Pearson/Prentice Hall, UK, 2006.
-
Aircraft Control and Simulation, Brian Stevens and Frank Lewis,
John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1992.
-
Fluid Mechanics DeMYSTiFieD (A Self-Teaching Guide),
Merle C. Potter, McGraw Hill, 2009.
-
Numerical Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations,
J.C. Butcher, Wiley and Sons, 2003.
-
Mechanics of Flight (Second Edition),
Warren F. Philips, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2010.
-
Analyse, J.H.J. Almering e.a., VSSD, Delftse Uitgevers Maatschappij,
the Netherlands, 1984.