Product Application Design Solutions

SoftwareAmerican Airlines uses CAE flight simulators

Officials at American Airlines in Fort Worth, Texas, needed advanced simulators for their training programs. So they chose Boeing 737-800 full-flight pilot training simulators from CAE Electronics in Montreal.

"Highly sophisticated flight simulators play a critical role in our rigorous pilot training programs," says Gerard J. Arpey, American's executive vice president of operations. "CAE's simulators are among the most advanced in the world and allow us to give our pilots the finest level of training in the industry."

American officials have purchased four 737-800 full-flight simulators, three full-flight simulators for the Boeing 777, and two full-flight EMB-145 regional jet simulators for their regional airline partner, American Eagle. The units are for pilot training at American's Flight Academy near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Four 737-800 full-flight pilot training simulators from CAE Electronics have been purchased by American Airlines.

CAE's Commercial Simulation and Training business, a unit of CAE Inc., has been supplying simulators to American since 1989, and the carrier is now the largest owner and operator of CAE equipment, with 19 full-flight simulators, CAE officials say. These include simulators for such jet aircraft as the Boeing MD11 and MD80, the Fokker 100, the Boeing 757 and 767, as well as two regional airplanes — the SAAB340 and the ATR42.

The most recent 737 simulator will be delivered to American in January 2001 and will be ready for pilot training in March 2001.

The airlines want a reliable machine, says Ash Sarin, director of sales and marketing for commercial simulation at CAE. That is one of CAE's biggest strengths — reliable machines with reliable support, Sarin claims.

Reliable products are necessary for a strong export business, and nothing is more of an export business than flight simulators for a Canadian company, Sarin explains. About 85 to 90 percent of CAE's commercial flight simulator business is exporting, he says. Canada used to have two airlines, but now it is down to one, Sarin adds.

CAE's simulators reproduce normal and abnormal situations, including all of the environmental conditions pilots encounter in actual flight, CAE officials claim. Instructors on CAE simulators are able to select and monitor automated lesson plans, make changes to lessons, or introduce simulated aircraft system failures. The simulator instructor also has as many 500 malfunctions available to provide in-depth training of the aircraft's abnormal or emergency systems and procedures, CAE officials say.

CAE engineers are also working on the next generation of flight simulators, which will be PC-based, Sarin says. PCs are less complicated, easier to use, and easier to maintain, he explains. With PCs pilots will be able to do long-distance learning on Internet links, enabling them to do their instrument training from home, Sarin adds.

Research and development is also being done on re-host avionics simulators, which are simulations that replace the instrumentation black boxes with software, Sarin says. The airlines want this because the black boxes are too expensive for them to purchase and maintain, he explains. — J.M.

For more information on CAE's flight simulators contact the company by phone at 514-341-6780, by fax at 514-340-5333, by mail at 8585 chemin Cote de Liesse, C.P. 1800 Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada H4L 4X4, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.cae.com.

Officials at BAE Systems are using the MentorWorxx mobile communications maintenance tool from Intelliworxx in Sarasota, Fla., for the Royal Navy's 1007 Radar System.

The 1007 equipment is a complex radar system used for navigation and helicopter control throughout the Royal Navy fleet. The value of the contract is $320,000 and should be completed by September of this year, Intelliworxx officials say.

"We learned of MentorWorxx through our counterparts in the U.S. Navy," says Lt. David Joyce, of the Royal Navy. "We believe this technology has great potential and are looking forward to implementing the initial 1007 Radar System project."

"We play an increasingly vital role in our customers' ongoing systems maintenance and training," says Richard Skedd, a spokesman for BAE Systems. "Point of use performance support using these tools has considerable potential in both military and commercial sectors."

The MentorWorxx system is a voice-interactive, multimedia mentoring solution that provides mobile workers with comprehensive data and learning at the point of use, with an easy-to access, human-to-human interface, Intelliworxx officials say. The solution includes the conversion of old data into MentorWorxx applications and brings data from disparate sources into an intuitive format, they claim. — J.M.

For more information on MentorWorxx contact Intelliworxx by phone at 888-200-9999, by mail at 1819 Main Street, 11th Floor, Sarasota, Fla. 34236, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.intelliworxx.com.

Engineers at Litton Electro-Optical Systems in Garland, Texas, are integrating high-sensitivity CMOS camera-on-a-chip technology from Sarnoff Corp. in Princeton, Mass., with a Litton image intensified camera system to create a video-enabled night vision system for the U. S. Army Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM).

Sarnoff will be a subcontractor on the project, which CECOM's Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate awarded to Litton. Sarnoff will use fiber optics to couple a new active-pixel CMOS image sensor, with 100 times the dynamic range of conventional imagers, to the Litton gated, unfilmed, halo-free image intensifier, Sarnoff officials explain. Sarnoff engineers will also provide a camera controller with analog video output.

"Combining [Litton's] cutting-edge image intensifiers and system integration techniques with our camera technology will give military units a powerful, lightweight videoscope for low light and nighttime operations," says Robert Andreas, Sarnoff's director of business development for optoelectronics.

The complete videoscope, at approximately 4 by 2 inches and 290 grams, will be small and light for easy portability and use in the field, Sarnoff officials claim. Low power requirements will minimize the need to change batteries in field use. Adding video to night vision scopes also permits recording of scenes and transmission to remote locations, Andreas says.

The Sarnoff CMOS APS imager at the heart of the scope's video capabilities uses the company's proprietary XDR (eXtended Dynamic Range) technology for intra-scene contrast.

The imager enables viewers to see details in dark shadows and bright highlight areas simultaneously. Conventional cameras can only show details in one of these areas at a time. The imager is specifically designed to match the characteristics of the latest Litton Gen IV image intensifier for the contrast imagery, Sarnoff officials say. — J.M.

For more information contact Sarnoff's Tom Lento by phone at 609-734-3178, by fax at 609-734-2040, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.sarnoff.com.

Officials at the U.S. Army Simulation and Training Command (STRICOM) in Orlando, Fla., are using 66 image generators from Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. in Salt Lake City for the U.S. Army's Close Combat Tactical Trainer.

Engineers will integrate the Evans & Sutherland image generators into simulators for armored and mechanized infantry training. For the initial phase of the contract, Evans & Sutherland engineers will provide 24 ESIG(R)-4530 image generators, which will go to STRICOM beginning in June 2000. The second phase of the contract, valued at nearly $13 million, calls for E&S to provide 42 Ensemble image generators, with the initial delivery in October 2000.

Evans & Sutherland's image generators are appropriate for the CCTT program because they are flexible and versatile enough to handle the Army's requirements, says David Figgins, the company's simulation group vice president.

Ensemble is a complete, PC-based image generation system, Evans & Sutherland officials say. A turnkey hardware and software system, it makes realistic simulation available on a PC platform, they claim. —J.M.

For more information on Evans & Sutherland image generators contact Joan Mitchell by phone at 801-588-1453, by fax at 801-588-4538, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.es.com.

Engineers at Litton Systems, Inc., Data Systems division in Agoura Hills, Calif., are using single-board computers from VMIC in Huntsville, Ala., for their Applique'+ V4 computer system.

Under the $2.8 million contract VMIC officials will provide Litton with their Intel Pentium II processor-based CompactPCI single-board computers. Potential additional orders could reach $9 million annually over the next 10 years.

Litton's Applique'+ V4 is a ruggedized, state-of-the-art computer designed to meet the military's digital battlefield requirements with applications involving situational awareness, command and control, weapons targeting, as well as tactical and operational applications.

Litton's enclosure design enables the Applique'+ V4 system to operate in compliance with MIL-STD-810E environmental specifications that include a -32 to 60 degrees Celsius operating temperature range in 5 to 100 percent relative humidity.

VMIC designers implemented features on their Pentium II processor-based single-board computer to meet Litton's system requirements, VMIC officials say. The enhancements include a flat-panel display capability, SMBus support for system monitoring and CPU throttling, a USB keyboard and mouse support, ACPI support, and operating system support for Windows 98, Windows NT, and Solaris. — J.M.

For more information on VMIC contact the company by phone at 800-322-3616, by e-mail at [email protected], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.vmic.com.

Engineers at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas are reducing the time necessary to complete computational tasks with the Desktop Engineer computerized engineering handbook from Desktop Engineering in Mahwah, N.J.

Lockheed Martin engineers working on missile applications such as the Patriot, Hellfire, and Copperhead projectiles, have been able to reduce the time for common computational tasks such as converting I-beam sections, from 30 to 60 minutes to five to 10 minutes, Desktop Engineering officials claim.

Airframe as well as hardware design normally requires an immense amount of hand calculations even when the most advanced computer-aided engineering tools are available, Desktop Engineering officials say. Performing calculations with the Desktop Engineer rather than by hand, enables documentation of all the required calculations to be produced with just a few keystrokes, they explain.

The Desktop Engineer is a computerized engineering handbook that provides more than 5,000 solutions to common engineering applications found in more than 100 engineering reference books. It includes more than 50 modules grouped into the following categories: geometric analysis, static analysis, dynamic analysis, and buckling analysis.

The major advantage of the Desktop Engineer is its ability to take the same equations in a reference book, prompt the user for information using "fill-in-the-blanks" input, and then automatically solve them, Desktop engineering officials say.

Other examples of problems that the Desktop Engineer solves are stresses in flat plates, pressure vessel designs, and plate and cylinder buckling analysis. — J.M.

For more information on the handbook contact Desktop Engineering by phone at 800-888-8680, by fax at 201-818-9707, by mail at 1200 MacArthur Blvd, Mahwah, N.J. 07430, or on the World Wide Web at http://www.deiusa.com.

Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., are using an Internet-enabled collaboration tool to help them design and build satellites at JPL's Mission Systems Design Center.

The tool is called e-Vis.com from Engineering Automation Inc.(EAI) in Ames, Iowa. Company officials say the tool unites project team members inside and outside a firewall in an Internet-connected online workspace.

The e-Vis.com tool enables team members to view, share, and collaborate on 2D and 3D product data in real time using a web browser interface. It also gives manufacturers tools for managing projects, tracking issues, and sharing files.

The only manufacturing collaboration solution to be granted security certification from Hewlett-Packard (HP), e-Vis.com is safeguarded by HP's military-grade security system, the Praesidum VirtualVault.

"In addition to providing visualization of complex spacecraft design data, we have demonstrated a collaboration process to derive solutions within complex technical, cost, and schedule constraints," says Stephen Wall, JPL leader for space mission architecture and design.

JPL designers use application sharing to work together on analyzing finite elements and on the costs of project options among the sponsors, program managers, and cost engineers.

EAI partnered with the Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) of Palo Alto, Calif., to provide military-level security for data residing on e-Vis.com using HP's Praesidium VirtualVault infrastructure and secure socket layer (SSL) encryption technology. — J.K.

For more information contact Engineering Animation Inc. by phone at515-296-9908, by fax at 515-296-7025, by e-mail at [email protected], by post at 2321 North Loop Drive, ISU Research Park, Ames, Iowa 50010, on the World Wide Web at http://www.eai.com/.