Augmented Reality for Immersive and Tactile Flight Simulation
Jon W. Wallace, Zhengxie Hu, Daniel A. Carroll · IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine · 2020
Flight simulators based on wrap-around displays provide an immersive experience for pilot training, but not only are they expensive and bulky, they typically only simulate a single aircraft configuration. Virtual reality (VR) is an interesting alternative, providing an immersive experience with lower cost and space requirements, as well as the ability to simulate arbitrary aircraft. Unfortunately, current VR systems do not provide natural tactile interaction with instruments and avionics in the cockpit environment. This article explores augmented reality (AR) as an alternative to VR and wrap-around display flight simulators, delivering an immersive experience for pilot training and tactile interaction with aircraft controls. The concept is demonstrated through a basic general aviation simulator setup, showing that a relatively low-cost personal computer and graphics processing unit can provide AR simulations at useful frame rates.