Initial Progress in Developing a Predictive Simulation Tool to Inform Helicopter Ship Operations

Memon, W, White, Mark D ORCID: 0000-0002-8611-9525 and Owen, Ieuan ORCID: 0000-0001-5642-736X (2018) Initial Progress in Developing a Predictive Simulation Tool to Inform Helicopter Ship Operations. In: 44TH EUROPEAN ROTORCRAFT FORUM, 2018-09-18 - 2018-04-21, Delft, The Netherlands.

There is a more recent version of this item available.

Text
ERF2018_Abstract_Wajih_Memon_UoL.pdf - Author Accepted Manuscript
Download (2MB)

Abstract

The UK’s Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary regularly perform launch and recovery operations of helicopters to and from their ships. These operations are carried out in challenging conditions, such as confined landing space, irregular ship motion, sea spray and unsteady airflow, posing a high risk to the helicopter, ship and crew. Together, these elements form the Helicopter Ship Dynamic Interface (HSDI) environment [1]. To determine the limitations of the safe operability of helicopters to the ships, a safety envelope is constructed through First-of Class Flight Trials (FOCFT) to determine Ship Helicopter Operating Limits (SHOL) [2], which specify the safe conditions for launch and recovery operations. FOCFTs are performed at sea and are inevitably very expensive, typically taking weeks to construct a SHOL envelope. Very often the required wide range of wind and sea conditions may not be available, resulting in the development of a conservative SHOL [3]. Therefore, Modelling and Simulation (M&S) of the HSDI environment is being developed in flight simulators to mitigate these risks, making SHOL testing safer, quicker and cost-effective. Whilst it is not trying to fully replace at-sea testing, the M&S research aims to inform the key test points of high uncertainty [4,5]. Over the past few years, flight simulators have been increasingly utilised in deriving helicopter/ship operational guidelines and construction of preliminary simulated SHOL envelopes using different techniques [6,7]. The aim has been to offer a wide range of benefits to the at-sea SHOL development process by testing various HSDI scenarios repeatedly with a range of pilots, prior to the FOCFTs. However, flight simulators, despite their utility, still posses limitations such as the fidelity of motion cues and flight models, hardware complexity and the availability of sufficient experienced pilots, all of which may result in compromised task performance and subjective ratings. This paper reports the further development of a HSDI M&S desktop predictive simulation tool that uses a pilot modelling technique. The research aims to develop a high-fidelity simulation tool which will have the capability to better represent the dynamics of the real pilot when operating in the particularly demanding shipboard environment. It is intended to use this tool in conjunction with the piloted simulations performed using the University of Liverpool’s Heliflight-R rotorcraft simulator facility [8] to construct a high-fidelity HSDI simulation environment which will offer a faster, cheaper and more efficient method for operational analysis of shipboard tasks for different combinations of helicopters and ships. Figure 1 shows the predictive tool structure presented in this study that includes a pilot model loop, helicopter dynamics, human sensory equalisation, ship airwake and ship motion driven by sea states, representing the integrated HSDI simulation environment.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Unspecified)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Flight simulation, Helicopter, Fidelity, Helicopter Ship Dynamic Interface, Modelling and Simulation, Ship Helicopter Operating Limits, Pilot Modelling
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2018 09:23
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:35
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3020473