Ask help for TCAS demonstration

[hxk123]

I want to use the flightgear software to demonstrate the working function of TCAS (Traffice Collision and Advisory System). I'm new to flightgear and I want to know how to automaticly fly with the given information of the trajectory and speed data. I have learned to play flightgear with the keyboard control method but have no idea to play it with a script or commands. I want to demonstate the two planes flying with given data. Could anyone help me? Thank you!

[daveculp]

I would have the "user aircraft" start in-air on a particular heading, then start the "target aircraft" as an AI aircraft on a collision course. It's been a while since I used the in-air spawning capability, so I'd be interested in knowing if it works OK.

[deena102]

Hi, I have the same need. I need to demonstrate TCAS.

Following are the requirements
1) Create a "Controllable Traffic"(target aircrafts) around the "user aircraft"
2) Enable TCAS in a given plane, example 787-8
3) Demonstrate different types of TA/RA Annunciations.

Kindly help.

[Hooray]

Hi & welcome,

yes, this can all be done by using the AI system and creating scripted traffic via Nasal: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Status_of_AI_in_FlightGear

Here are a few more pointers discussing the whole approach and its limitations/requirements:

• AI-Scenarios
• Suitability of this software to run a swarm simulation
• Possibility to run a fully automatized mission ?
• How would I go about controlling an airplane with nasal?
• Interactive ATC

You can even create Canvas-based PFD/ND instruments for AI traffic fairly easily using the MapStructure/ND frameworks, including TCAS TA/RA support:
How to display Airport Chart?


As you can see, these are all independent ND instances, driven by AI traffic - all purely implemented in scripting space. We already do have a very basic TCAS/TRAFFIC ("TFC") layer for the ND: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Canvas_MapStructure_Layers

Creating conflict scenarios should be fairly easy using the tanker.nas demo code, and some creative use of the APIs provided in geo.nas

Overall, this should only take 2-3 weekends - i.e. coming up with a working prototype.

[hxk123]

Hi, Thank you very much for your kindly reply. I am new to flightgear and find a bit difficult to understand the material suggested by you. I want to animinate the flight with a scheduled flightplan like the AI aircraft. How could I achieve it? I tried to use command --flight-plan=flightplan.xml but could not start the software with the command. I simply want to a to control the trajectory and speed of the flight automatically. And I have learned AI and want to know whether I could see the cockpit of the AI aircrafts or not.
Could you provide a detailed procedure to build the display the flight trajectory and flight data?
Thank you!

[Hooray]

Like I said previously: What you describe would be possible using scripted AI (i.e. Nasal/AI traffic) - in fact, it would even be possible to either render a complete cockpit (animated via AI properties) or simply use a GUI dialog that renders a Canvas PFD/ND for each "flight". That is why I provided those pointers. I am not sufficiently familiar with AI scenarios and/or AI flight plans, so I cannot answer reliably, if you can create such TCAS scenarios using those tools - which is why I suggested the scripted method, which is also the one uses by the bombable addon - which demonstrates that you'll have a ton of flexibility.

Could you provide a detailed procedure to build the display the flight trajectory and flight data?

I probably could, but it would take me ~30 minutes to write it all down, and it will inevitably involve coding - and a ton of programming pointers. Which kinda means that you'll either have the patience to read up all the pointers I have provided thus far, or that you'll have to use some other approach, or maybe even a completely different project. I am sorry, but my response is as detailed and exact as it can get basically - especially in a non-commercial project, you'll find very few open source projects providing this degree of support, and this number of pointers. What I am saying: from here on, it's up to you to spend some time and familiarize yourself with your options, in this case this mostly means reading up on Nasal, the property tree and AI scripting - and looking at a few examples, like those I suggested - e.g. tanker.nas, fox2.nas or the bombable add-on.

Otherwise, there's very little that I, or others, can now do to help you - short of writing actual code for you, I mean
Personally, I am more inclined to provide additional help once I can see that the person asking has done some "homework" and actually looked up things - while I don't mind seeing additional questions, I do expect them to be more informed, and more specific - i.e. of a less basic nature.

However, once you've shared your exact requirements - you'll probably find that there are various different ways to accomplish those goals. The route I suggested isn't necessarily the only one, I just suggested this particular approach because it works around limitations in the C++ code, and because of requirements that you posted - but if you find it too complicated, you may want to consider some other method, or maybe even consider your requirements.

Thus, I am afraid, that - what I have posted is pretty much what I would post again given your most recent response.

Could you provide a detailed procedure to build the display the flight trajectory and flight data?

The display doesn't need to be "built": the difficult work has already been done, e.g. by people like Gijs - as part of his PFD/ND projects.
Which is why I suggested this particular approach: it would allow you to reuse such work, without having to re-create any avionics from scratch - those would just be existing avionics using different properties for "animation".