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Augmented Reality in Aviation

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bifft

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
Messages
429
Location
Utah
So, this little aside in the Rutan Catbird thread totally nerd-sniped me (https://xkcd.com/356/).

I actually meant the "flight instrument" display - an augmented-reality overlay laser-projected on the canopy, showing a "highway in the sky", positions of conflicting traffic, etc.. We'd be able to do that with AR goggles these days (and I'm amazed that only the R/C crowd has done it), but for the early '80's when the article was written, the entire concept was amazingly ahead of its time for light-airplane usage.

Spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of days researching, wanted to share what I found. Seems like more of a new thread thing.

Even though such a thing wouldn't really be all that useful with the kind of flying I do (recreational in good weather, aerobatics), it seems like it wouldn't be hard to do. At least from the software side. Also, it's actually something I'm qualified to create. Could get a beta version running in a couple of months of my free time.

Almost all of the data you would want would be available from an ADSB-in box. Combine that with orientation from the goggles (which they need to have to work at all) and the only thing missing is your flight plan for the "highway in the sky" part.

From orientation, display current heading, virtual horizon. From GPS position and history display current track, both horizontal and vertical. GPS altitude and ground speed also available (Baro alt and airspeed are desirable, but would require another piece of hardware tied into the pito static system.) Traffic alerts from ADSB-in.

Only need to use the orientation of the goggles, you don't really care where they are inside the plane. Compared to what we want to show the airplane is tiny, so shifting your head position doesn't need to change the image.

Something like this: (drawn over the top of a screen shot from recent flight)

ar.jpg


Note that you can see a traffic alert (circle with line showing direction of travel) through the plane.

So, I did some research into what is available in AR goggles these days. Field of view is terrible, usually being around 22-25 degrees or so. Bigger than a smart phone at arms length, but not something that would be useful to alert you to traffic or to be a virtual horizon for staying rightside up in poor visibility. Even the big ones only go up to 50 degrees. That would be useable, if not what I would really want. Some people are working on wider ones, but they don't seem to be on the market yet.

Screen resolution is usually in the 1920x1080 range, so way more than enough.

More expensive than I thought, usually in the $1000+ range for the hardware. Many require an additional box somewhere on your body.

Cheap stuff like this: https://www.amazon.com/Headset-Glasses-Augmented-Reality-Android/dp/B07N2PXK8W is available, but that wouldn't have the image focused at infinity. Not good, the whole point is to make it so you are focused outside the plane on things that are far away.

Reading/listening to reviews they say things like "heavy, hot and uncomfortable". Maybe Ok for 5 minute demo, or a 15 minute battery limited drone flight, but not good for a 3-5 hour airplane flight. Not good for pulling Gs. They also mention frequent nausea in users, I believe from there being a lag between movement and the visual updates. These should get better as the tech improves.

I wasn't able to find any real specifications on the orientation sensors other than the number of gyroscopes and accelerometers. I couldn't tell if the orientation was gyro only or if they use the accelerometers to decide which way is up. Many also have a magnatometer, so would provide compass data. Could be a problem in flight.

TLDR: The software side would be easy, but I don't think the hardware is ready yet. Probably 2-5 years away. Curious if anyone has actually worked with AR goggles to see if my thoughts match reality.
 

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