haptic side-stick feedback

What is it about?

In this paper, we present a new force-feedback side-stick which has been developed and integrated into a research flight simulator. The developed 2 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) force-feedback joystick, as a kind of haptic device, provides two-way communication in both position and force, and allows users to interact with the simulation system. It has been designed by considering the main factors in designing a general use force-feedback device. Thus, the design must allow the restitution of aerodynamic forces onto the hand of the pilot. This is an important feature, which gives the pilot the ‘natural feel’ of traditional mechanical aircraft control. In order to provide the force feedback to enhance the realism of the simulation, we added the necessary software using Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) solutions (Microsoft Flight Simulator Software (MSFS)) and built-in data structure and methods. Thus, the main contribution of this paper concerns the design and implementation of an automatic controller based on fuzzy logic systems. It is not simply designing a force-feedback stick for flight simulation: we proposed a novel control principles and more importantly completely new approach to compute in real-time force feedback on the stick based on pilot knowledge that avoids the use of complex aerodynamics equations with unknown parameters. To our best knowledge, this work is the first to propose the integration of fuzzy logic force controller in flight simulation for creating force feedback. Results using the overall simulation are presented and evaluated and interesting sensations have been recorded.

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