{"id":7282,"date":"2020-06-07T15:15:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T15:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=7282"},"modified":"2020-06-08T19:09:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T19:09:55","slug":"simulating-urban-air-mobility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=7282","title":{"rendered":"From The Faculty: Simulating Urban Air Mobility"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y<\/span>ou\u2019ve probably seem promo videos or read articles about \u201cUrban Air Mobility\u201d (UAM) \u2013 currently a hot research topic in aerospace engineering \u2013 where small aircraft capable of taking off and landing vertically transport people on short-hop flights within a city or between nearby destinations, avoiding heavy traffic congestion on the roads below. If successful, this concept of operations could have a very substantial positive societal impact. As with any potentially transformative technology, however, several barriers must first be overcome before widespread adoption is a possibility. <\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, how do we guarantee that these revolutionary aircraft will have stable flight characteristics? How do we ensure that passengers get to enjoy a comfortable ride in them (a must for widespread adoption)? How do we design these aircraft to be \u201cpilot-friendly\u201d by design, so that it\u2019s possible to train a large number of UAM pilots at a fraction of the cost of training a commercial airline pilot today? <\/span><\/p>\n

These are some of the questions that we at the Vehicle Systems, Dynamics, and Design Laboratory (VSDDL) want to address. Over the last year, we\u2019ve built (from scratch) the Reconfigurable Flight Simulator (RFS) \u2013 a flight simulation facility located in Gavin Room 257 designed to have the flexibility needed to do research on novel future aircraft concepts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Team members (L-R) Cameron Leonard, Imon Chakraborty, Tommy Cox, Anthony Comer, Henry Reagan and Matt Seay in front of the reconfigurable flight simulator.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An interesting fact about the RFS \u2013 one that I\u2019m immensely proud of \u2013 is it was designed and built by a team of mostly undergraduate students.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the RFS, we use a large 16-foot diameter cylindrical screen and overhead projectors to display a 270-degree horizontal field-of-view image representing what the pilot would see \u201cout-the-window.\u201d Since we don\u2019t know exactly what future aircraft designs will look like, we\u2019ve designed the RFS to allow us to change the layout of the cockpit, the position and types of cockpit controls, and the design of the cockpit instruments and displays. We drive the RFS with a simulation model that we\u2019re developing with funding from NASA Langley Research Center that lets us model a wide variety of flight vehicle designs and flight control system algorithms. <\/span><\/p>\n

Later this year, we\u2019ll use the RFS for a simulation study in which we\u2019ll recruit three types of participants: <\/span><\/p>\n

(i) certified flight instructors from among our colleagues in the Aviation Department, (ii) students currently training to be pilots, and (iii) people with driver\u2019s licenses but no pilot training. These participants will get to \u201cfly\u201d a UAM vehicle in the simulator and perform some representative UAM piloting tasks \u2013 taking off, going from A-to-B, landing, etc. We\u2019ll then analyze the flight data gathered and compare the relative performance of these three groups to gain insight on how to make these novel flight vehicles more pilot-friendly and easier to transition to with little or no prior aviation (piloting) experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in being part of this study, or you have ideas for some interesting research involving flight simulation, or if you\u2019d just like to come out and see it, please let us know! <\/span><\/p>\n

Imon Chakraborty is an assistant professor of aerospace engineering. Check out his lab\u2019s website at vsddl.com.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several barriers must first be overcome before widespread adoption of Urban Air Mobility is a possibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":7363,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrom The Faculty: Simulating Urban Air Mobility » Auburn Engineer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ecm.eng.auburn.edu\/wp\/emag\/?p=7282\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From The Faculty: Simulating Urban Air Mobility » Auburn Engineer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Several barriers must first be overcome before widespread adoption of Urban Air Mobility is a possibility.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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