Development of a Simulation Environment for Maritime Rotorcraft Research Applications

Research helicopter flight simulators require high fidelity visual and motion systems alongside representative flight models to provide an immersive experience for pilots. This paper describes the development of a maritime environment for the research simulator AVES (Air Vehicles Simulator) at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Features for the flight model, the visualization and for motion tuning are discussed. For turbulence simulation, the rotorcraft flight model was extended by an interface to precalculated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) wind fields. The visualization contains high fidelity 3D models with photorealistic textures and a traffic server with the possibility of adding Simulink models as used for realistic ship dynamics in waves. The motion platform was tuned using the Objective Motion Cueing Test (OMCT) technique. All features were merged to create realistic offshore scenarios. A number of examples are shown from current and former projects where the maritime environment has been used