Development of Dynamical Visual Environment for Maritime Helicopter Real-Time Flight Simulation

Abstract

A visual environment for maritime helicopter real-time flight simulation is presented and evaluated. For offshore helicopter operations, simulators have to replicate the flight through obstacle scenery (e.g. radio masts, cranes, rotating wind turbine blades…), and landing on a helideck with limited visual cues due to the natural environment. Poor modeling of moving obstacles or helidecks further increases the problems the pilots are faced to, resulting in "false learning" close to moving obstacles and helidecks. The paper focuses on the development and implementation of an Offshore-Scenario, taking into account complexity, real-time ability, and realism. Based on a thorough investigation of maritime helicopter operations, an Offshore-Scenario which depicts the situation off German coast, was defined. It includes several dynamical components such as rotating wind turbine blades, wind generated waves, and moving ships and is therefore suitable for simulating common offshore helicopter operations. The decks and visual sea models within simulators are usually not realistic, with the helideck having a sinusoidal motion and the visual wave model moving independently. Contrary to the common practice, in this work, the deck motion is modeled as a response to the wave excitation.