TabletFTS - Advanced EFB applications for rapid, lowcost, flight test execution

Tablet-computer based Electronic Flight Bags (EFB) have become ubiquitous in airplane flight decks in recent years. IO Aeronautical Autonomy Labs proposes this project to extend these tablet applications with a series of functions, specifically designed to provide real-time support to NASA and the flight test community in the execution of flight test. Some specific functionalities that we envision as being useful to flight testers include: • interactive test cards that track test point execution in real-time and verify test point completion, • calculation of dynamics and control inputs for getting precisely on condition given the current aircraft state, • sensing, calculating, and plotting important parameters in the cockpit, • and annunciations of potential safety concerns to the pilot and flight test engineers. However, before such a system can be made a reality, critical components must be analyzed to define their limits as they currently exist and to uncover improvements that can be brought to bear. As such, this proposal addresses two key enablers for the development of flight test applications: 1. an analysis of the suitability of the sensing platform included with iPads, as well as, how modern algorithms can be used to augment their capability and what other technologies can be integrated in to improve functionality, and 2. the development of tablet applications to support test pilot operations in real-time in flight (TPilS) evaluated initially through a piloted simulation platform. Looking ahead to Phase II, the project will produce a prototype that can be developed alongside NASA test pilots and engineers to improve its usefulness in flight test. For Phase I, the goals are to to analyze and develop sensor models for electronic flight bags and develop and test applications on the EFB to support flight test execution for NASA and the flight test community at large.