Importance

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Abstract

A computing system for a flight simulator is formed as a distributed system with a common bus MFB to which five processing modules 11 to 15 are connected. The module 11 processes data relating to aircraft movement and receives data from a pilot's manual controls simulator 16, and supplies data to a motion output unit 17 and a visual field output unit 18. the module 12 processes data relating to engine performance. The module 13 processes data relating to navigation and communciations, and the module 14 processes data relating to aircraft equipment systems such as hydraulic and electrical systems. The modules 12, 13 and 14 may each supply control signals to instruments read by a trainee pilot, and each receive signals from manually operable members or switches operated by the trainee pilot. The module 15 is an instructor station and communicates with a VDU terminal 21. Each module contains, in an interface circuit MFI, a memory which stores data shared by all five modules, the memory being organized so that each module can read any of the data but can only write into a respective allocated region of the memory. The interface circuits MFI each broadcast the contents of their respective allocated memory regions in a predetermined order during a short period at the beginning of each computing frame. Each MFI thus receives the updated contents of the regions allocated to the other MFIs and has an address generator which ensures that the updated contents are written into the correct regions of the memory. Local area networks ML and DL couple the modules 11 to 15 to a management computer MC for program loading and debugging.

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First Claim