Development of FRAME-SIM flight simulator : software communication and collective lever force feedback

In the context of a modern approach to rotorcraft design, handling qualities should be the result of careful planning, rather than the output of a multitude of other choices, made primarily focusing on more immediate constraints. For a wide range of flight conditions and mission task elements, test-pilot feedback is the essential measure upon which design choices are made. Thus, it is becoming of fundamental importance to be able to simulate a representative model of the vehicle in a pilot-in-the-loop environment as early as possible in design process. This work is intended to document the development process of such a system, currently being realized at the facilities belonging to the Aerospace Science and Technology Department of Politecnico di Milano. Particular attention is given to the software architecture, based on the free and open-source multibody solver MBDyn. The development of a module specifically designed to take advantage of the environment visualization capabilities of FlightGear, free and opensource software as well, is presented. The second part is focused on presenting implementation of pilot force feedback on collective lever.