Hello All !
I'm working since a while on a project of a full system to control a B737-800 homecockpit, based on raspberry and arduino cards. The system is quite well developped now, it allows to control the hardware (all buttons, rotary encoders, analog sensors, ...) and control the different screens (PFD, ND, upper and lower DU (Engines, ...). I am currently working on the FMC, and it's a huge amount of work. The main ideas for such a design are :
- make a plug & play system : no programming needed, just configuring your own hardware through a User Interface program.
- low energy consumption : all screens are driven by Raspberry pi3 cards, which consume a few watts (as opposed to use PC's to run the display softwares)
- make a full system, which handles everything in the cockpit (EICAS, MCP, Overhead panel, FMC, ...) to avoid using a patchwork of different softwares that might not have been designed to work cooperatively.
- the system drives well known, proven Opencockpit I/O cards (mastercards).
You may see the advances and a more detailed description by visiting my blog at www.738sys.com (pay attention at the menu bar below the upper image which contains links to the different aspects (hardware, screeens, configuration, ...)
I am quite convinced that I can make a full package which can easily be used by many. I'm not decided if I want to follow a commercial approach or a more open , sharing way of doing things.
However, if you are interested, I will soon need to get in touch with people that are willing to try the system for their own design, in order to get some feedback and beta testing. It's not yet the moment since I want to continue to advance the design before opening it to others, but in case some are interested, you will have time to look at the blog to see the details.
