Flight simulation in synthetic environments

The Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State University, VRAC, has the mission of applying virtual reality technology to the challenges of engineering and science. We typically create virtual worlds that allow the user to interact with 3D real time graphics. We refer to the virtual worlds enabling this interaction as synthetic environments. A synthetic environment produces sufficient sensory cues to make the user believe they are actually in a different geographic location with a different velocity and orientation than they have in the real world. These cues may include a large field of view real time stereoscopic visual display, surround sound digital audio, and haptic interactions. The user's head is tracked to enable the appropriate viewpoint for the stereoscopic display, and other parts of the user's body may be tracked to enable interaction with the environment and haptic feedback. Classical flight simulators are a subset of synthetic environments. Although they do not usually use stereoscopic displays, they do use large field of view visual systems, digital audio, force feedback via the flight controls, and force feedback on the simulator as a whole via a motion base. We believe the addition of stereoscopic 3D graphics will be particularly valuable in hovering, formation flying, and landing.