Research project

i-VISION (Immersive semantics-based virtual environments for the design and validation of human-centred aircraft cockpits)

Project overview

The i-VISION project aimed to support the design and validation of aircraft cockpits, through the exploitation of knowledge-based immersive virtual reality technologies. 

During the development of the i-VISION platform, the primary focus was to facilitate the knowledge existing in several individual components of the cockpit, using a semantic approach for developing the virtual environment. A range of simulation issues have been addressed, including:

  • analysis of connections between elements of the cockpit in respect to various operating conditions and procedures
  • visualisation of the operator’s workflow, and analysis of the frequency and allocation of tasks within the cockpit
  • augmentation of the virtual cockpit with semantic annotations, adding intelligence and knowledge to the VR-based simulation of cockpit operations. Virtual objects should be more than a set of faces and vertices, and there is a need to go beyond the current state of scene-graphs, where only geometries exist and no knowledge.
  • creation of a virtual scene-graph as a knowledge data-base. Currently no logical or functional knowledge exists behind virtual objects
  • consideration of the special simulation requirements of different operation conditions (e.g. landing, extreme weather, and increased air-traffic).

The project working cycle was based on a closed loop between the human pilot, the modern virtual aircraft cockpit interfaces and the operating conditions.

Staff

Lead researchers

Emeritus Professor Neville Stanton

Research interests

  • Ergonomics and Human Factors methods
  • Distributed cognition and distributed situation awareness
  • The effects of automation on human tasks, mainly focused on the development of vehicle automation in road transport
Connect with Neville

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs