Simulab Documentation Project  (02-06-2011)

SimuLab is a working name for a combat flight simulation project, representing modern air, land & sea combat.

The primary project aim is to get as close to reality as possible.

As any other simulation, SimuLab doesn't claim to be a mirror for "Reality TM" and doesn't simulate every aspect of the real world, but it enters some areas never represented by other PC games before. Any addict PC pilot knows, that many aspects of modern warfare are confidential and not available for public access. SimuLab gathers information from many different sources including WWW (data, manuals, e-Books etc. etc.), books (air combat tactics, tech. data) and other simulations like Flanker2 (flight characteristics), MicroProse Falcon4 (avionics & dynamic campaign), Jane's F-15 (F-15E avionics), Jane's F/A-18 (F/A-18E avionics), Graphical Simulation Korea (F/A-18A avionics).

Project team won't try to acquire classified information at any cost. Instead, we focus on reaching same quality of avionics and flight dynamics as in simulations mentioned before, while paying more attention to artificial intelligence (AI), strategy, tactics & career options involved in dynamic campaign.

Summary of Simtechnologies SimuLab engine

This document describes the Simulation Laboratory application prospect by its planned features.

SimLab is a 3D visualization environment for running simulated combat scenarios. SL provides reach event storing facilities to enable detailed after action review and analysis. SL also provides an extensive tool suite to enable the user to add, modify and re-analyze the combat entity. Following "WHAT IF" analysis aspects will be provided:

1. modification of the performance data (flight dynamics, weapon dynamics, avionics, AI)
2. modification of the system logic (flexible / open subsystem programming interface for avionics, weapon guidance, AI)
3. avionic interface layout (improve ergonomics, test modifications for effects in simulated environment)
4. define and edit cockpit layouts / avionic suites to test the entire "office" for ergonomics and efficiency in simulated environment
5. define combat scenarios to provide combined test of the entire combat system like a fighter aircraft

The Simulab Project Proposal

Click on this link Project Proposal for an outline of this project.

Click on this link The Project Flow for a general flow-chart of the Simulab project.

The Simulab Code

Build, Setup, and Run Simulab Demo: Getting started and discussions of setting up the Simulab engine.

Simulab Current Issues: This is the page of our current postings to the JIRA Bug and Issue tracking system.

Simulab Components:  All of the "pieces" making the simulation engine.

Documentation Topics

Virtual Universe:

At this actual stage, the terrain engine of SL represents 2/27th of the entire Earth surface. The height map relies on real-world data, accumulated by NASA satellites (the so called Digital Elevation Maps, SRTM/GTOPO30 data sets), covered by high resolution satellite images of according areas. As you may imagine, the entire area includes many countries, even more air ports, still more cities and so on. While giving you a huge "play ground" (you will have unlimited freedom of movement on and over entire territory), SL Team provides real world features like cities, infrastructure etc. only for the area, which is in the scope of dynamic campaign. Even limited by campaign extent, SL represents 3 countries, 322+ air ports (more than in Falcon4), countless cities, villages and infrastructure. The populated areas and other features are of course of generic type, though alignment of the runways and coordinates for all ground features are correct. Experience shows, that communities often were willing to enhance multimedia content of their favorite simulations, this is why I leave software architecture as open as possible. The user will be able to add/modify facilities, textures and add their own 3d content to the game. Therefore I will provide a set of converters, animation sequencers and data base editors.

Objects and Characters:

In terms of 3D games, objects are static and characters are mobile 3d objects, populating the virtual universe (VU). The represented in game objects are in most cases separate buildings, factories, infrastructure etc. Though there are no visualised objects so far, their design will rely on real world photos. Characters (in our case aircraft, ground vehicles, ships & soldiers) mainly designed according to technical line drawings of real world counterparts & to the right scale.

Campaign Engine:

It is a bit too early to discuss the campaign engine. Right now it only contains minor routines for reading, searching and manipulating the data. In many aspects it should be similar with Falcon4 campaign but will pay closer attention to logistics, maintenance state, and availability of particular aircraft types, sophisticated ground & sea operations. Any given campaign game will start with predefined number of combat resources (human strength, ammunition's, combat vehicles) and proceeds without reinforcements until negotiations between both countries take place. The human pilot (or pilots) is only one of many actors, having no influence on outcome of entire combat. At least on initial stages of his or her career.

Conflict Background:

The conflict to be represented in the first release of SL reflects the never ending skirmishes between India & Pakistan, both claiming Kashmir territory their own. In SL one of such skirmishes rises to a full scale war between the both countries. At this point I want to underline, that although the dynamic campaign in the simulation is based on a real world conflict, it doesn"t reflect real world situation, politics or particular view of whoever is in right on this occasion. The SL campaign represents a purely hypothetical and apolitical conflict, in game you have the unlimited freedom to select the country you want to fight for or against. This area was selected due to highly interesting combination of the military hardware, terrain & climate features. I also spent 13 yrs. of my life in the Middle East 153km apart Afghan border.

Since both countries have nuclear capabilities and strategic cruise missiles, I decided to add one additional force to support the outnumbered Pakistan forces: in this fictional campaign, the USAF Europe, USMC & USN are in the heat of the battle operations. Their special task is to support Pakistani air campaign & to prevent nuclear deployment. This particular decision wasn"t based on real world politics, since the relations between Pakistan and US aren"t that good, and Pakistan"s best ally is China.

In the virtual skies over India & Pakistan you will meet French, British, US American, Russian and Chinese aircraft, fighting each other according to real world tactics and hardware limitations. Months of work went into accumulation of real world data. Resulting data base isn"t complete yet (in fact, the data base lacks some weapon data, types and numbers of the ground forces, tech specs on air defence hardware etc.), but the information about the airborne component of opposing forces is complete: the virtual air forces will operate the total of 89 aircraft types. Every single aircraft is maintained in campaign data base, has its own registration number (over 80% of this serial numbers are painted on tails and fuselages of real world aircraft, 2386 serials so far), has specific maintenance status and crew assigned. SL team rejected only 3 unimportant transport aircraft types (for example Dornier 228) and slightly optimized the list of available types. For example India operates pretty many different MiG-21 versions, thereof 5 most important types are represented in SL. Pakistan acquired many Mirage III versions from different suppliers, thereof 7 most important types are represented in SL. In both cases the real aircraft serial numbers were reused to identify most similar type in SL.

Pilots Career:

First off, not only human successes result in career advance; AI officers have also their chance to gain experience & receive promotions etc. The only difference is that the logbook of the human pilot maintains stats in greater detail. Your virtual career in SL world begins with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and in one of the training units; there you finalize your jet conversion on K-8 (India), FT-5 (Pakistan) or T-38(US). You have to accomplish several flying sorties to prove yourself in aircraft handling, navigation, formation, BFM & ACM. After successful completion you are honored with "Silver Wings" and 1st Lieutenant Rank. At this point you have to choose one of flyable aircraft and your "home" (Fighter Squadron). In your squad you start with familiarization flights on your aircraft type (2-seated versions are available for all flyable types) proceeding later with unit-specific combat training. By the time you complete the 2nd stage of your flight training, you have certificates for at least 2 aircraft types and combat approval, which allows you to fly "sharp" missions in campaign. Collecting combat & general flying experience brings you to the next promotion: Captain. Now you are assigned element leader, you may select pay load for your element and meet your tactical decisions. Moving from Captain to Major will require empty flight leader slot in the unit roster and specific set of training missions which will include specific subjects like route planning, flight tactics and so on. To switch from one particular aircraft type or unit to another, you will have to send your requests to your aerial command. As you may see, the career options are fairly close to the real world counterparts. The higher your rank, the greater your responsibility and your influence on missions your unit flies. As squad commander you will have to analyze target strike request lists and recon data, as well as order & plan support by other units (I shifted the command chain to horizontal on unit level, to make support flight acquisition easier). The highest rank you may reach is Brigadier General.

Aircraft Dynamics:

In most cases I was able to find detailed information on a particular airframe performance, the data for all 89 types is almost complete, and the remaining white spaces will be filled with "guess numbers" determined in in-flight evaluations with Flanker2. Collecting data for the project I found myself reading many articles about particular aircraft. Most authors agreed that NOT the general airframe performance, but handling characteristics, cockpit ergonomics and performance of all warfare systems have now day"s primary importance. Don"t take me wrong, I"m not trying to find excuses for simple flight modeling (SL tries to take as many flight characteristics into account as possible), but realizing that the major difference between 3rd and 4th generation fighters are their avionics suite. Vertical acceleration or maximum ceiling, turn rate or airspeed bleed rate doesn't really make your aircraft superior if your avionics aren't up to date.     JSBSim Reference Manual

Aircraft Avionics:

Right now I have nice sources for 5 flyable aircraft of SL (different types, not including variants), which allow me to implement avionics suites in great detail. You may expect same avionics quality as in Falcon4 or Jane"s F-15. Additionally you should expect rare techniques like "buddy-lase", remote weapon guidance (AGM-130, GBU-15 etc.) and functional FAC methods (both airborne and ground based).

Network Gaming:

This part of the simulation is a "black box": no source code was written, no investigation made. There are 2 simulations (Jane's Logbow2 & BI Operation Flashpoint), which managed to place 2 humans into the same aircraft and to make Pilot/RIO duo possible. This feature is very important for me, since I want to make true online flight training possible. It's also the only way, to make F-15E, Su-30MKI etc. really deploy-able. The primary task here is to create suitable information interchange with minimum packet size & minimum packet numbers.

The above categories are compiled from Outlaw78/Paul, the developer's "mind-map". These are a rough layout of what the SimuLab engine will be capable of.

We will be expanding and adding information to these and other topics soon.