China's 1st self-developed flight simulator visual system debuts in Zhuhai

China's first aviation safety and simulation research laboratory, jointly established by China Southern Airlines and Tencent at Zhuhai Xiangyi Aviation Technology, released the country's first self-developed full-motion flight simulator visual system on June 20.

Wu Guanghui, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, spoke highly of the system as it realized key technological breakthroughs and provided security guarantees for flight training.

The full flight simulator is a major piece of training equipment for civilian pilots, which consists of a simulated cockpit, motion system, visual system, computer system, and instructor console. Among them, the visual system is one of the most critical parts of the equipment, as it simulates what the pilots will see in flight.

The visual image of the sea presented by the system. [Photo by Chen Xinnian / Guanhai App]

Yang Lei of Zhuhai Xiangyi Aviation Technology said that the closer the training scene is to the real environment, the more effective the training is for the pilots.

China Southern Airlines has teamed with Tencent, which works with advanced game technology, to research and develop rendering and simulation technologies, intelligent generation technology for airport models, and virtual imaging technology for high optical performance.

The new visual system has improved the rendering performance by more than 10 times, and the modeling efficiency by 10 times. This solves problems of low definition, distortion, color skew, and severe brightness attenuation of virtual image display.

Moreover, the system can flexibly build realistic visual models according to special events in flight, as well as provide effective training scenarios for special event analysis. It can also help improve flight technical inspections, safety assessments, safety incident investigations, and aircraft maintenance.

The visual system can rebuild an urban environment of 2,000 square kilometers (772 sq miles) in half a day and create an airport environment in three days.

Yang Yuanyuan, the former director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said that the aviation safety and simulation research laboratory not only promotes cross-field joint sci-tech innovation, but also helps create a new generation of key technologies for visual systems. It promotes aviation safety together with sci-tech innovation, which will inject new impetus into civil aviation safety work.

Of note, the laboratory will focus on four major areas: research into flight safety, prevention, and control; big data flight research; flight simulation; and visual simulation.