90 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
90 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
Dual control for FlightGear/CVS (copilot OSG only)
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--------------------------------------------------
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Anders Gidenstam (anders at gidenstam dot org)
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This collection of Nasal code and instruments enables a pilot and
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copilot to jointly fly an aircraft over the FlightGear multiplayer
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network. Pilot and copilot can have shared control over primary
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flight controls, throttle, mixture, elevator trim, flaps, brakes,
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cockpit switches, part of the radio stack and instrument settings
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and so on.
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To use the system two "aircraft" needs to be created:
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- The pilot uses the original aircraft (or a variant thereof).
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The pilot need to specify the callsign of the copilot (other copilots
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will be ignored).
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Usage example:
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fgfs --aircraft=ZLT-NT --prop:/sim/remote/pilot-callsign="copilot"
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- The copilot uses a special "aircraft", <aircraft>-copilot, which
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piggybacks on the designated pilot and captures the local control
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inputs. A current limitation is that only the cockpit view
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is jitter free. There is also a noticeable delay between control inputs
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and effect, since they are passed via the the multiplayer protocol.
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The severity of this delay depend on round trip time and some other
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factors - the delay seems significantly longer than the round trip time
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itself which is due to buffering in the MP protocol receiver.
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That said, I have flown successfully as copilot in a setup with
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100-120ms round trip time between both pilot and server and copilot and
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server (total delay >500ms). Landing is a bit exciting in that
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case, however.
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Usage example:
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fgfs --aircraft=ZLT-NT-copilot --prop:/sim/remote/pilot-callsign="pilot"
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Visit http://www.gidenstam.org/FlightGear/DualControl/ for the latest
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information.
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Developer notes
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---------------
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The dual control mechanism is divided into to several parts:
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- the generic core modules in DualControl/ ;
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- the 3d instrument sharing wrappers in DualControl/instruments/ ; and
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- the aircraft specific configuration in Systems/ZLT-NT-dual-control.nas
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and the ZLT-NT/-set/-copilot-set files.
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See the ZLT-NT aircraft for an example how everything come together.
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aircraft_dual_control
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---------------------
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The aircraft specific dual control Nasal module MUST be loaded as
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aircraft_dual_control and MUST define the following variables and
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functions:
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pilot_connect_copilot(copilot) : returns a list of DCT components
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Does whatever initialization needed to connect the copilot and
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returns a list of dual-control-tools components whose update() method will
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be called (in list order) once per frame.
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copilot is the node hash for the base of the multiplayer tree for the
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copilot user.
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pilot_disconnect_copilot() : void
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Does whatever cleanup needed when the copilot disconnects.
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copilot_connect_pilot(pilot) : returns a list of DCT components
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Does whatever initialization needed to connect to the pilot and
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returns a list of dual-control-tools components whose update() method will
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be called (in list order) once per frame.
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pilot is the node hash for the base of the multiplayer tree for the
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pilot user.
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copilot_disconnect_pilot() :
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Does whatever cleanup needed when the pilot disconnects.
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pilot_type : string
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The identifying string of the pilot aircraft is the path of the
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3d model XML file of the pilot aircraft (as found in sim/model/path
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under the multiplayer entry).
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copilot_type : string
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The identifying string of the copilot aircraft is the path of the
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3d model XML file of the copilot aircraft (as found in sim/model/path
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under the multiplayer entry).
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