Augmented and Virtual Reality Aerospace

Bear

Bear

Well-Known Member
headlined on ‘Airline News’ was “IAG sees growing roles for AI, virtual reality in airlines”

well that future is here for the taking, kinda wish I was of the age to grab the ring.

https://www.eonreality.com/solutions/augmented-virtual-reality-aerospace/

Augmented and Virtual Reality Aerospace solutions have the unique ability to provide experiential training in real-time, data-driven applications. For Aerospace, this improves the efficiency of skills transfer, increases knowledge retention, and better captures enterprise knowledge within an organization.
 
I'm not buying into the AR/VR craze. It feels like forced technology to me. Nothing will ever replace real world training. Sometimes you need those real touches, sounds and smells.
 
SeanD said:
I'm not buying into the AR/VR craze. It feels like forced technology to me. Nothing will ever replace real world training. Sometimes you need those real touches, sounds and smells.
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I don't agree. I spent a good part of my software development career developing flight sims and virtual reality applications. I can easily replicate a real world environment. With the latest advances in HMDs like the Oculus and Vive, which are consumer grade HMDs around $500 and I can almost completely replicate a flight I have done. I took a woman for a date and we flew a 172 cross country. We then went home and tried my sim with the Oculus and she could not tell a difference in the experience.

Add to that the full motion sims we use at training fairly accurately replicates the flight deck environment.

Then take similar technology like AR and you can have so much more data available to the flight crew in a HMD. You can now take all the important data that the flight crew needs to look down to the instruments to see and put it in front of their eyes so they can keep their eyes outside. How big of a benefit to traffic for example does that benefit the crew. And AR display can give the pilot a indicator of exactly where to look for that traffic, can highlight the traffic before the pilot can get visual on the target. How great is that. The pilot can adjust his flight path before even seeing the traffic. How about having all your checklists in the HMD. No looking for the checklist. Its right in view when you need it. How much time would that save in an emergency?

I think both of these technologies are game changers for aviation. Both in training and actual flight.
 
av8tr1 said:
I don't agree. I spent a good part of my software development career developing flight sims and virtual reality applications. I can easily replicate a real world environment. With the latest advances in HMDs like the Oculus and Vive, which are consumer grade HMDs around $500 and I can almost completely replicate a flight I have done. I took a woman for a date and we flew a 172 cross country. We then went home and tried my sim with the Oculus and she could not tell a difference in the experience.

Add to that the full motion sims we use at training fairly accurately replicates the flight deck environment.

Then take similar technology like AR and you can have so much more data available to the flight crew in a HMD. You can now take all the important data that the flight crew needs to look down to the instruments to see and put it in front of their eyes so they can keep their eyes outside. How big of a benefit to traffic for example does that benefit the crew. And AR display can give the pilot a indicator of exactly where to look for that traffic, can highlight the traffic before the pilot can get visual on the target. How great is that. The pilot can adjust his flight path before even seeing the traffic. How about having all your checklists in the HMD. No looking for the checklist. Its right in view when you need it. How much time would that save in an emergency?

I think both of these technologies are game changers for aviation. Both in training and actual flight.
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There may be a few advantages but there is no way it will ever replace any type of flight training completely. It cant replicate real emergencies scenarios like an engine running rough or smoke in the cockpit, just to name a few. There are situations where you absolutely need all of your senses. I just dont see a need for VR or AR to train pilots. We have been doing just fine without it.
 
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SeanD said:
There may be a few advantages but there is no way it will ever replace any type of flight training completely. It cant replicate real emergencies scenarios like an engine running rough or smoke in the cockpit, just to name a few. There are situations where you absolutely need all of your senses. I just dont see a need for VR or AR to train pilots. We have been doing just fine without it.
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Yeah I totally know what you mean, we should go back to using these:

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Augmented reality is going to be a game changer in the industry. Also what if you could put on a headset and "see" all the terrain around you.
 
SeanD said:
There may be a few advantages but there is no way it will ever replace any type of flight training completely. It cant replicate real emergencies scenarios like an engine running rough or smoke in the cockpit, just to name a few.
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It's not like we can replicate any of those things right now, outside of a level D sim.
 
Judging by how well the computers worked for the FMS training portion of the ER7 course I know how this will turn out.

I'm sure VR will be implemented but not sure how well it will actually work and how much will be learned vs time spent restarting the devices.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Bear said:
'The Dark Secret at the Heart of AI.

“We can build these models,” … “but we don’t know how they work.” No one really knows how the most advanced algorithms do what they do. That could be a problem.'

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604087/the-dark-secret-at-the-heart-of-ai/
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Stuff like this will at least be helpful in training a ramp rat to understand the difference between a 737 and E-170, but ya, there's no replacement for yanking that tow bar off in real life.

Nothing else to add, but I really really love technology review, and I'm glad other JCers read it.
 
av8tr1 said:
I took a woman for a date and we flew a 172 cross country. We then went home and tried my sim with the Oculus and she could not tell a difference in the experience.
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She was either nodding in agreement not to offend you or an idiot. It's not even close.
 
z987k said:
She was either nodding in agreement not to offend you or an idiot. It's not even close.
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Actually she holds commercial multi with CFI/CFII and is a graduate of Riddle's pilot program. (Ok maybe you're right given she went to Riddle).

Have you tried the Oculus yet? Next time you find yourself near PDX with some free time why don't you swing by my place and I'll let you give it a try.
 
Not a pilot, but I can only assume your mind/stress/adrenaline reacts differently to your engine shutting down in a sim compared to it shutting down at 30,000'. Just like how I've known trainees who can work a busy pattern perfectly in a sim but then completely fall apart talking to real planes.

VR/Simulators definitely useful, but can never replace the real life training.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Not a pilot, but I can only assume your mind/stress/adrenaline reacts differently to your engine shutting down in a sim compared to it shutting down at 30,000'. Just like how I've known trainees who can work a busy pattern perfectly in a sim but then completely fall apart talking to real planes.

VR/Simulators definitely useful, but can never replace the real life training.
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Yes and no.

I got surprised by a terrain alert in the simulator, the sim instructor gave me some intentionally dangerous vectors after slam dunking me on an approach. I was trying to get the approach briefed and set up and it scared the crap out of me - for a brief instant I forgot I was in the sim, I instinctively pitched up to about 20 degrees nose up dropped the plate I was reading and mashed in max power. It was only after I heard the instructor laughing at me that I realized where I was.

That sim training is insanely valuable - especially if you can keep the guy outside of his comfort bubble, I think VR could be just as good if it was set up properly.
 
ppragman said:
Yes and no.

I got surprised by a terrain alert in the simulator, the sim instructor gave me some intentionally dangerous vectors after slam dunking me on an approach. I was trying to get the approach briefed and set up and it scared the crap out of me - for a brief instant I forgot I was in the sim, I instinctively pitched up to about 20 degrees nose up dropped the plate I was reading and mashed in max power. It was only after I heard the instructor laughing at me that I realized where I was.

That sim training is insanely valuable - especially if you can keep the guy outside of his comfort bubble, I think VR could be just as good if it was set up properly.
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But I mean, as a VFR sight seeing tool. lol nope.
 
Augmented reality, or some kind of more practical Google glass, will probably be here before autonomous airliners. I think I read somewhere that this technology is employed in the f35, allowing a pilot to basically see through the floor and have targets highlighted in their field of view. Something like this, coupled with some crazy computing powe and ADSB, would be awesome to push more traffic. If someday computers become powerful enough to show other aircraft, and a potential wake turbulence warning area behind the target based on aircraft configuration and environmental factors, it could increase traffic volume significantly and safely (which would be huge for airports that are restricted by the amount of pavement). Adding terrain into the picture would be a great help too, it's basically there with synthetic vision right now. Just integrate it onto the pilots head, and it'll be pretty hard to cfit

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
bimmerphile said:
Augmented reality, or some kind of more practical Google glass, will probably be here before autonomous airliners. I think I read somewhere that this technology is employed in the f35, allowing a pilot to basically see through the floor and have targets highlighted in their field of view. Something like this, coupled with some crazy computing powe and ADSB, would be awesome to push more traffic. If someday computers become powerful enough to show other aircraft, and a potential wake turbulence warning area behind the target based on aircraft configuration and environmental factors, it could increase traffic volume significantly and safely (which would be huge for airports that are restricted by the amount of pavement). Adding terrain into the picture would be a great help too, it's basically there with synthetic vision right now. Just integrate it onto the pilots head, and it'll be pretty hard to cfit

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
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Would be neat to overlay the weather radar return as well
 
bimmerphile said:
Augmented reality, or some kind of more practical Google glass, will probably be here before autonomous airliners. I think I read somewhere that this technology is employed in the f35, allowing a pilot to basically see through the floor and have targets highlighted in their field of view. Something like this, coupled with some crazy computing powe and ADSB, would be awesome to push more traffic. If someday computers become powerful enough to show other aircraft, and a potential wake turbulence warning area behind the target based on aircraft configuration and environmental factors, it could increase traffic volume significantly and safely (which would be huge for airports that are restricted by the amount of pavement). Adding terrain into the picture would be a great help too, it's basically there with synthetic vision right now. Just integrate it onto the pilots head, and it'll be pretty hard to cfit

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I want "virtual vfr" where I have synthetic vision on my AR headset, checklists that watch what I do in the cockpit and visually highlight what I should do "next," I want AR that's connected to the plane that shows me real time information about the state of valves, and electrical equipment, and fuel, etc on my AR unit.

This is so insanely easy - the other stuff we haven't thought of yet will make star trek look quaint.
 
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