Human-in-the-Loop Flight Training of a Quadcopter for Autonomous Systems

A software framework was developed connecting a Parrot AR 2.0 quadcopter to a full motion flight simulator at the Michigan Aerospace Center for Simulations. The combination of a drone with a flight simulator provides for precise remote operations without putting a human pilot at risk. We use the motion capabilities of our flight simulator to keep the pilot oriented consistently with the quadcopter. The result was a responsive system utilizing telemetry data to synchronize a flight simulator to a drone's movement with low latency. The proposed system was developed over the course of 30 weeks and put through its paces in our lab over two days. This paper outlines our methods, from the software architecture, to a detailed description of the hardware, to accomplish this aim and outlines some directions for further study.