The Aerospace Integration Research Centre (AIRC) at Cranfield University offers industry and academia an open environment to explore the opportunities for efficient integration of aircraft systems. As a part of the centre, Cranfield University, Rolls-Royce, and DCA Design International jointly have developed the Future Systems Simulator (FSS) for the purpose of research and development in areas such as human factors in aviation, single-pilot operations, future cockpit design, aircraft electrification, and alternative control approaches. Utilising the state-of-the-art modularity principles in simulation technology, the FSS is built to simulate a diverse range of current and novel aircraft, enabling researchers and industry partners to conduct experiments rapidly and efficiently. Central to the requirement, a unique, user-experience-centred development and design process is implemented for the development of the FSS. This paper presents the development process of such a flight simulator with an innovative flight deck. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates the FSS’s capabilities through case studies. The cutting-edge versatility and flexibility of the FSS are demonstrated through the diverse example research case studies. In the final section, the authors provide guidance for the development of an engineering flight simulator based on lessons learned in this project.

A novel full-envelope controller for an over-actuated fixed-wing vectored thrust eVTOL aircraft is presented. It proposes a generic control architecture, which is applicable to piloted, semi-automatic, and fully automated flight, consisting of an aircraft-level controller (high-level controller) and a control allocation scheme. The aircraft-level controller consists of a main inner loop classical nonlinear dynamic inversion controller and an outer loop proportional–integral linear controller. The inner loop nonlinear dynamic inversion controller is a velocity controller that cancels the nonlinear bare airframe dynamics, while the outer loop proportional–integral linear controller is an attitude and navigation position controller. Together, they are used for hover/low-speed control and forward flight. The control allocation scheme uses a novel architecture, which transfers the nonlinearity in the vectored thrust effector model formulation to the computation of the actuator limits by converting the effector model from polar to rectangular form, thus allowing the use of classical control allocation linear optimisation technique. The linear optimisation technique is an active set linear quadratic programming constrained optimisation algorithm with a weighted least squares formulation. The control allocation allocates the overall control demand (virtual controls) to individual redundant effectors while performing control error minimisation, control channel prioritisation and control effort minimisation. Simulation results show the transition from hover to cruise, climb and descent, and coordinated turn clearly demonstrate that the controller can handle actuator saturation (position or rate).

The rotorcraft is a complex dynamical system that demands specialist modelling skills, and a high level of understanding of the aeromechanics arising from the main rotor wake and aerodynamic couplings. One such example is the difficulty predicting off-axis responses, particularly in hover and low-speed flight, associated with induced velocity variation through the rotor disk resulting from the rotor wake distortions. Various approaches have been developed to deal with this phenomenon but usually demand prerequisites of high levels of expertise and profound aerodynamic knowledge. This paper presents a new and practical approach to capturing this wake distortion through an augmented rotor inflow model. The proposed model is coupled with a nonlinear simulation using the FLIGHTLAB environment, and comparisons are made between the simulation results and flight test data from the National Research Council of Canada’s Advanced System Research Aircraft in hover and low speed. Results show good predictability of the proposed nonlinear model structure, demonstrated by its capability to closely match the time responses to multi-step control inputs from flight test. The results reported are part of ongoing research at Liverpool and Cranfield University into rotorcraft simulation fidelity.