Evaluation of Simulator Cueing Fidelity for Rotorcraft Certification by Simulation

Before their entry into service, newly developed rotorcraft must go through an extensive certification process in order to receive a type certificate from the certification authority. A vital and long-lasting phase of this process is the compliance demonstration. This phase involves a large amount of flight testing, which leads to high expenses for the rotorcraft manufacturer and can be considered as high-risk when it comes to rotorcraft safety, especially for scenarios including control system or engine failures, as in the case of a category-A rejected take-off (CAT-A RTO). The Rotorcraft Certification by Simulation (RoCS) CleanSky2 research project aims to reduce the amount of flight testing required for compliance demonstration by using flight simulation, to achieve an increase in safety (less hazardous situations) and effectiveness, and a reduction in certification duration and costs. Within the project, pilot-in-the-loop simulator test campaigns were conducted at DLR and NLR, investigating the visual cueing fidelity required for performing a CAT-A RTO scenario. Emphasis was put on varying the available field of view (FoV) for the pilot and investigating the suitability of virtual reality (VR) devices. Subjective and objective results from these simulator campaigns, as well as pilot comments are presented in this paper.