Measuring Simulator Fidelity

Quantifying the fidelity of flight simulators and other motion environments is a difficult and confounding task.  The main confounding factor is that it is difficult to obtain an objective measure from human users, since their performance is subject to their individual reactions and current state of mind.  Robotic solutions would eliminate the human element but are severely limited in that how humans integrate the large amounts of inputs they are subjected to in flight is not fully understood.  Infoscitex proposes to leave the human in the equation but eliminate the subjectivity associated with cognition.  Our system will record the underlying response of the body to the dynamics of flight.  Then, our system can be used in a flight simulator, and the correlation between the results in real flight and in the simulator subject to the flight dynamics of the aircraft will provide a measure of the fidelity of the simulator in question.  The system can be applied to any flight or motion simulator, including ones with force feedback, a motion base, or vision alone. BENEFIT: The problem of validating the equivalence of flight simulators is one that has been noted by diverse personnel involved with flight simulation, including military and civilian flight instructors.  Indeed, we already have obtained Boeings written interest in our system for their commercial flight trainers.  While the initial application of our system is to validate the equivalence of flight simulators to flight, development of the system will provide a comprehensive sensor suite that can record the bodys reaction to a number of complex inputs.  Several non-flight markets are therefore available, including medical evaluation, rehabilitation, exercise and entertainment.   The initial application will benefit flight training, in that by being able to ascertain the fidelity of existing simulators, and using the tool to develop even higher fidelity simulators, total in-flight training time can be decreased, and ground-based training time can be used more effectively.  This will result in safer and far more economical training of pilots, both civilian and military.