Captec’s 19” Rack Integrated Industrial Computers Enhance Flight Simulators

Computer Simulation is becoming increasingly prevalent in the training of specialist roles. None more so than in flight simulation for the training of pilots. Captec’s capabilities to manage industrial pc technologies and the integration in complete 19” integrated racks is becoming increasingly a key differentiator. Technological advancements in CPU and Graphics performance are pushing the boundaries of graphics rendering, driven by the gaming industry, and increasingly leveraged by simulation applications. Harmonising such high end industrial pc technologies requires expert integration of specialists such as Captec.

Captec was selected as a specialist supplier of the integrated cockpit vision systems computers by one of the world’s leading flight simulator manufacturers.  Critical to this selection were Captec’s expertise and ability to:

• Specify, select and manage best of breed industrial pc based technologies.
• Fully integrate the industrial computers into 19” racked solutions.
• Engineer appropriate levels of protection to the physical challenges of the application.
• Engineer EMC protection to comply with very stringent emission standards
• Manage the Compliance and Certification process end to end for the complete integrated racks.
• Provide extensive documentation at the installer, user and maintainer level.
• Provide a low risk partner with 25 years in the business and rock solid financial credentials.

Simulation marries very high end multi-core CPUs, typically dual, quad core CPU based and above, with very high end GPUs (Graphic Processing Units).  The combination results in a very high TDP footprint which needs to be very carefully managed.  Captec’s engineering expertise provided power budget calculations and associated thermal modelling and management to ensure that the power management was optimised for peak efficiency and best thermal profile.  Internal airflow management was also optimised to reduce the external/internal thermal delta.  Thermal management had to be further engineered to the whole rack as up to 8 very high power industrial computers were populated in each rack. The resulting rugged computers were totally protected for reliable operation in the higher thermal profile of the integrated rack.

Flight simulation is equally challenging on the EMC front with a wide diversity of very sensitive cockpit instrumentation which are highly sensitive to EMC.  Standard racks are not optimally designed for EMC emissions, particularly not so for QXGA graphics and the associated emissions from high end clock frequencies and associated sidebands.  Captec’s engineering team were able to apply best practice EMC engineering to ensure that the complete rack was tested to the highly demanding standards of the industry and be fully certified by an independent third party test house.

In order to support the lifetime of the simulators Captec’s obsolescence management and change control processes were instrumental in demonstrating its capabilities to manage the through life requirements of the customer.  In addition the engineering team produced the complete documentation pack for all the stakeholders, from the installers, users and maintainers of the equipment.

The Captec solutions resulted in up to 8 19” rack mount computers integrated in a complete rack and anywhere from 1 to 3 racks per simulator.  In all cases the racks were integrated with additional functionality such as KVM, Ethernet switches, Intelligent Power Distribution Units, Environmental Management Unit, Cable Management for ease of servicing, and many more technical considerations designed into the overall solution.

Captec’s complete 19” racked industrial computer solution allowed the customer to deploy flight simulators capable of handling the demanding graphics which gives the training pilots an enhanced experience to ensure that their training is as real as possible to prepare them for flight in the aircraft. The ability to train on simulators ensures fewer pilot error accidents and in turn increases safety in our skies.

A world where industrial computers can operate reliably in any environment for the benefit of mankind

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