• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Autopilot system

Rob Gomez

Rob Gomez

Messages
173
Country
us-newjersey
Hello Everyone,

Can anyone offer me some advice on setting up the features of an autopilot system? I have a really great panel for my UAV, but I am unsure about how to wire in an operational AP.

I understand it is done with C++, however I have seen it in the aircraft.cfg of many other aircraft. How does this work?
 
FSX/P3D supports most autopilot functions such as altitude, speed, heading, vsi hold and some navigation modes.

In general:
Aircraft.cfg entries tell you what autopilot modes exist on this aircraft. Below are some good starting points.
These entries are described here:MSDN cfg autopilot entries
Then you need to use the appropriate events to input values to the AP simulation variables. This can be done in XML and C++.
The Autopilot key events are listed here: MSDN Autopilot Events
The Variables are listed here: MSDN Autopilot Variables

Making a basic autopilot is fairly simple, but you will have to study some aircraft that do it right. You need to do your homework though. Some default aircraft as well as many freeware planes and panels are coded in XML and you can see the autopilot "button logic" with a simple text editor. Just do a search for any aircraft panel on AVSim, download it and open the XML gauges.

After you manage to give it some input data, you need to calibrate your autopilot to fly smoothly by tweaking the aircraft.cfg values.
 
The type of system we are looking to create is just a few simple commands and maybe an auto-hover feature.

Thank you for the reference material!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top