NI VeriStand Add-on: X-Plane Custom Device

[User002]

The X-Plane Custom Device enables VeriStand to do single-point IO with the X-Plane flight simulator.

This example also exist as a continuously evolving example in the LabQT LGPL Open Source Library.

The Custom Device is free for academia and nonprofit purposes.

For commercial licensing (with support) contact Riki Virc @ DVel:

Riki Virc

+46(0)733-856910

riki.virc@dvel.se

Below are two youtube videos illustrating the device in use for a sequenced autopilot aircraft takeoff:

Connection Setup:

Input Channels is autodetected from your selection in X-Plane:

X-Plane Channel selection:

Output Channels:

Edit1: Added a patch for issues when removing input channels

Edit2: Rework to a Asynchronous device for UDP latency issues. Added support for sb/cRIO targets. Included source code.

[StephenB]

Very awesome! I just watched the video. Impressive. Thank you very much for sharing.

Just to clarify... in this case, X-Plane is running a plane simulation and a visualization? Is that common? Do people ever want to run a plane simulation inside NI VeriStand (as a model) and publish the position data to X-Plane for visualization?

[User002]

Thanks Stepehen, I appreciate it. And you are welcome.

You are right, X-Plane runs the flight dynamics(model) and graphics. Intended usage is for testing UAV control logic, path planning and at the same time have a good visualization of the aircraft behaviour through the X-Plane GUI.

I will use the custom device to test this controller:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4ny2d13Yjo

I wonder though, if it's a good idea to set up some kind of group and to leverage some of the community prowess to speed up the LabVIEW based UAV control computer and a VeriStand RT test system? 🙂

Regarding your question. It would indeed be interesting to dynamically select which subsystem on the aircraft should be simulated through the API. For example, testing out another engine/control algorithm, injecting failures etc. I am not sure X-Plane supports this?

There are though a few FOSS flight simulators that could be torn apart into one or more dynamics subsystems, each running as a VS model.

http://www.flightgear.org/