Development of Validation Tools for Carrier Simulations for use in Fixed-Wing and Rotary-Wing Flight Simulation

操作飞机往返于船舶对飞行员和飞机来说都是一项艰巨的任务，特别是在发射和回收阶段。这对于固定翼和旋转翼飞机都是如此，与陆基操作相比，船舶的飞行甲板很小，并且不断地在滚动，俯仰和垂荡中移动。此外，船舶上层建筑后面和飞行甲板上方的气流是高度湍流的，并且包含涡流和剪切层，当飞行员在移动的甲板上方和靠近船舶上层建筑的地方操纵时，这些涡流和剪切层会使飞机震动。这种湍流，也被称为“空气尾流”，会对飞机性能产生不利影响，并会扰乱飞机的飞行路线，需要飞行员立即采取纠正措施。因此，飞行员的工作量可能很大，误差幅度很小，因此直接影响飞机/船舶组合的安全操作包线。在装有高度增强的数字式飞行控制系统的飞机的舰载试验中观察到的一个相当新的现象是空气尾流对飞机大气数据系统响应的不良影响。因此，即使是飞行员工作负荷一般较低的先进飞机也不能不受空气尾流的影响。在这个项目中，感兴趣的飞机是STOVL F35 B Lightning II，即将在皇家海军服役，该船是伊丽莎白女王级航空母舰。利物浦大学的Heliflight-R运动基地飞行模拟器处于学术界飞行技术研究的前沿。用于开发模拟器飞行模型的主要建模和仿真软件包是高级旋翼机技术公司的FLIGHTLAB软件。海上旋翼机和通用固定翼STOVL（短距起飞和垂直着陆）飞机的飞行力学模型集成到沉浸式飞行模拟环境中，允许飞行员驾驶飞机往返船舶。模拟环境的一个重要组成部分是船舶上的气流，这是使用先进的计算流体动力学（CFD）创建的;空气尾流建模的质量及其随后集成到模拟环境中是该项目的关键驱动力。在利物浦大学进行的研究将为BAE系统公司的F35/QEC飞行模拟设备提供支持。项目成果：该项目的总体目标是了解如何通过以下方式将模拟和飞行试验最佳地结合起来：1.在行业主导的气流模式（AFAP）试验期间，使用实验室规模的流量测量值和/或从海上船舶测量的真实数据验证现有的非定常空气尾流模型。该研究将有助于指导和指定在这些海上试验期间进行的测量，并将使用所得数据来验证和改进现有的空气尾流模拟。开发工具和技术，通过使用新的方法来识别和跟踪测量数据集中的重要特征，并将其与模拟流中的特征相匹配，以增强空气尾流模型的验证。开发将舰船空气尾流模型与一系列飞行器模型（有人驾驶或无人驾驶/固定翼或旋翼）相结合的新方法。这将涉及应用新的压缩技术，以减少空气尾流数据集的大小，同时确保保持数据的保真度，以及先进的数据存储，访问和实时查找技术。

Operating aircraft to/from ships is a demanding task for both the pilot and aircraft, particularly in the launch and recovery phases. This is true for both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft alike where, compared to land-based operations, the ship's flight deck is small and is constantly moving in roll, pitch and heave. In addition, the air flow behind the ship's superstructure and over the flight deck is highly turbulent and contains vortices and shear layers which buffet the aircraft as the pilot manoeuvres over the moving deck and in close proximity to the ship's superstructure. This turbulent flow, also known as the 'airwake', can adversely affect aircraft performance, and will disturb the aircraft's flight path, requiring immediate corrective action from the pilot. Consequently, pilot workload can be high and the margins for error small, so directly affecting the safe operational envelope of the aircraft/ship combination. A reasonably new phenomenon, observed during shipboard testing of aircraft with highly-augmented digital Flight Control Systems, has been the undesirable impact of airwake on the response of the aircraft's Air Data Systems. Therefore, even advanced aircraft with generally low pilot workload are not immune to the effects of airwake. In this project the aircraft of interest is the STOVL F35B Lightning II which is coming into service with the Royal Navy, and the ship is the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier.The Heliflight-R motion-base flight simulator at the University of Liverpool is at the cutting edge of flight technology research in academia. The primary modelling and simulation package used to develop flight models for the simulator is Advanced Rotorcraft Technology's FLIGHTLAB software. Flight mechanics models of both maritime rotorcraft and generic fixed-wing STOVL (short take-off & vertical landing) aircraft are integrated into an immersive flight simulation environment that allows the pilot to fly the aircraft to and from the ship. An essential component of the simulation environment is the air flow over the ship and this is created using advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); the quality of the airwake modelling and its subsequent integration into the simulation environment is the key driver for this project. The research carried out at the University of Liverpool will support the F35/QEC flight simulation facility at BAE Systems Warton.Project Outcomes: The overall aim of the project will be to understand how simulation and flight test can be combined optimally by:1. Providing validation of existing unsteady airwake models using both laboratory-scale flow measurements and/or real-world data measured from the ship at-sea, during industry led Air-Flow Air-Pattern (AFAP) trials. The research will help to direct and specify the measurements taken during these at-sea trials and will use the resulting data to validate and refine existing airwake simulations.2. Developing tools and techniques to enhance airwake model validation by using novel methods to identify and track significant features in the measured datasets and match those to features in the modelled flow.3. Developing novel methods of integrating the ship airwake models with a range of air vehicle models (manned or unmanned/fixed or rotary-wing). This will involve the application of novel compression techniques, to reduce the size of the airwake datasets while ensuring maintenance of data fidelity, and advanced data storage, access and real-time look-up techniques.