Airbus A340 Glass Cockpit Project
Manual A340GC 0.3
Airbus A340 Glass Cockpit
May 2002
by Laura Christina Larissa Bottelier, B.Sc. (Hons.)
IRADIS Foundation
Overview
The Airbus A340 Glass Cockpit project an intiative of the IRADIS foundation is OpenSource. The goal is to provide a close as possible Airbus A340 glass cockpit. The software uses the glass cockpit library libGC developed for this project. The libGC provides an open interface to the rest of the flight simulator and contains a framework designed for easy development of an glass cockpit.
EFIS
The current release includes the start on the EFIS. Currently only the primary flight display (PFD) and Navigaional Display (ND) are partly simulated.
The PFD features the airspeed, attitude, heading, and altitude indicators. The FMA, guidance and trajectory, and vertical speed indicators are not jet supported.
The ND has all 5 modes except the engine mode. Only the current airplaine position and receiver arrays 1 and 2 are supported.
ECAM
The ECAM system contains of 2 monitors in the Airbus A340. One displays the Engine and Warning Display and the other the Systems Display. Currently only 3 pages of the System Display are supported. These are the Flight Controls page (F/CTL), the Doors page (DOOR), and the Hydraulics page (HYD).
Configuration
Almost every thing in A340GC is configurable through the configuration file a340gc.conf. This file contains multiple sections. Each section contains the settings for a specific part of the software.
A340GC
This section labeled [a340gc] contains all settings specific to the behaviour of the A340GC program. The following settings are supported:
screen.width
Defines the width in pixels of the window or of the sreen in fullscreen mode. The default value is 800 pixels.
screen.height
The height in pixels of the window or of the the screen in fullscreen mode. The default value is 600 pixels.
screen.bpp
This setting defines the number of bits user per pixel. The more pits per pixel the more colours can be displayed. Some or more dithering can occure at lower bit per pixel settings. Typical values are 15, 16, 24, and 32 bits per pixel. The default value is 16.
screen.type
Defines if A340GC runs in a window or fullscreen. Valid values are "windowed" and "fullscreen". The default setting is "fullscreen".
screen.cursor
This setting determines if the mouse cursor is shown or hided. The default value is "no".
framerate.show
Defines if the framerate is shown on the screen or not. The framerate is depicted in three numbers seperated by slashes. For instance "129/132/87". The first value shows the average framerate. The second value the current framerate, and the last value the lowest measured framerate. The default setting is "no".
framerate.xThis value defines the horizontal position of the framerate values on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is "-0.666".
framerate.y
This defines the vertical position of the framerate values on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is "0.45".
display
Thsi defines a new display which hold the pages to be shown. For each display defined a display section must be declared specifying the psotion, size, and contents.
Display sections
For each display declaration in the a340gc section one display section with the same name has te be defined.ECAM.SD.FCTL.key
This defines the keyboard key that actives the ECAM Flight Controls page.
ECAM.SD.DOOR.key
This defines the keyboard key that actives the ECAM Doors page.
ECAM.SD.HYD.key
This defines the keyboard key that actives the ECAM Hydraulics page.
EFIS.PFD.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Primary Flight display.
EFIS.ND.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display. The selected mode variable defines the mode that is displayed.
EFIS.ND.ROSE_ILS.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display in ROSE ILS mode.
EFIS.ND.ROSE_VOR.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display in ROSE VOR mode.
EFIS.ND.ROSE_NAV.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display in ROSE NAV mode.
EFIS.ND.PLAN.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display in PLAN mode.
EFIS.ND.ARC.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives the EFIS Navigational display in ARC mode.
NULL.key
This defines the keyuboard key that actives a black page.
default_display
This setting defines the default page to be shown. The default is the first page assigned to a key.
display.width
Defines the width of the display on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is 1.0
display.height
Defines the height of the display on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is 1.0
display.x
Defines the horizontal position of the display on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is 0.0
display.y
Defines the vertical position of the display on the screen. See the section 'Display coordinates' for more information about display coordinates. The default value is 0.0
display.angle
This setting defines the rotation of the display in degrees. The default value is 0 degrees
display.frame
This setting determines if a white rectangle is drawn around the display. This rectangle can be used during display alignment. The default value is "no".
lines.width
This setting defined the width of line segemtns. The default value is 1.0.
lines.smooth
This defines if lines are anti-aliased. The default is false
polygons.smooth
This defines if polygons are anti-aliased. The default is false
DIOM
This section labeled [diom] contains all settings related to the data input and output module of libGC.
diom-dl
Defines the DIOM-Dynamic Library to use. Currently the correct value would be "rddp". This requires a file "rddp.dll" either in the same directory that a340gc is installed into or the windows system or system32 directory. Please refer to the libGC documentation on the DIOM and DIOM-DLs
Display coordinates
All sizes and positions of a display on the screen are specified in a normalized rectangle. The center of the screen is 0,0. Most screens are more wide than they are tall. The height of the total screen is defined as 1.0 and the width is 1.0 times the aspect ratio of the screen. Mostly this will be 1.33333. Since the screen center is defined as 0,0 the coordinates run from -0.66667 to 0.66667 horizontal, and between -0.5 and 0.5 vertical.
Specifing a display as 1 by 1 the display will fill the complete height of the screen and will be a square.
Supported variables
This chapter contains information about the DIOM variables used by A340GC. The variables are grouped by the displays / pages that use them. For every variable the data type is specified along with sensible values if appropriate.
ECAM System Display common
| Variable name | Data type | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
| timeofday.hour | integer | 0 | 24 |
| timeofday.minute | integer | 0 | 59 |
| grossweight | float | ||
| centerofgravity | float | 0.0 | 100.0 |
| temperature.static_air | float | ||
| temperature.total_air | float |
ECAM System Display Flight Controls
| Variable name | Data type | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
| aerosurface.left.aileron.position[1] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.left.aileron.position[2] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.left.aileron.servofail[1] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.left.aileron.servofail[2] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.left.aileron.neutral | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.left.aileron.drooped | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.right.aileron.position[1] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.right.aileron.position[2] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.rigth.aileron.servofail[1] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.rigth.aileron.servofail[2] | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.rigth.aileron.neutral | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.rigth.aileron.drooped | float | -100 | 100 |
| aerosurface.speedbrake.lowgreen | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.speedbrake.lowblue | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.speedbrake.lowyellow | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.pitchtrim.angle | float | -99 | 99 |
| aerosurface.pitchtrim.jam | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.pitchtrim.lowblue | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.pitchtrim.lowyellow | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[1].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[2].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[3].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[4].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[5].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[6].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[1].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[2].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[3].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[4].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[5].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.left.spoiler[6].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[1].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[2].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[3].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[4].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[5].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[6].state | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[1].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[2].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[3].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[4].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[5].fault | boolean | ||
| aerosurface.rigth.spoiler[6].fault | boolean |
EFIS Promary Flight Display
| Variable name | Data type | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|---|---|---|
| indicator.airspeed | boolean | ||
| velocity.TAS | float | 0 | |
| velocity.V1 | float | 0 | |
| velocity.VR | float | 0 | |
| velocity.V2 | float | 0 | |
| velocity.VSW | float | 0 | |
| velocity.VLS | float | 0 | |
| velocity.VMax | float | 0 | |
| indicator.attitude | boolean | ||
| orientation.heading | float | 0 | 360 |
| orientation.pitch | float | 0 | 360 |
| orientation.roll | float | 0 | 360 |
| indicator.altitude | boolean | ||
| position.altitude | float | ||
| controls.autopilot.altitude | float | ||
| indicator.heading | boolean | ||
| indicator.verticalspeed | boolean |
last updated: Mon Apr 22 21:13:42 CEST 2002
