Augmented reality aerial navigation for a safer and more effective aviation

Project Information

AEROGLASS

Grant agreement ID: 674045

DOI

10.3030/674045

Project closed

EC signature date 15 July 2015

Start date 1 August 2015

End date 31 July 2017

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 1 572 500,00

EU contribution

€ 1 100 750,00

Coordinated by

EU Edge Informatikai Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag
Hungary

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - AEROGLASS (Augmented reality aerial navigation for a safer and more effective aviation)

Reporting period: 2016-08-01 to 2017-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Our company EU Edge Kft., a cutting edge software developer company and trusted partner of several globally known Hungarian high potential companies (e.g. Prezi and LogMeIn) has developed the concept combining its deep knowledge in augmented reality technologies and the personal background of its founder and CTO, Mr. Ákos Maróy, an active pilot himself. The Aero Glass project is a disruptive technology making use of cutting edge augmented reality technologies in the aviation industry. The team has developed a product that is able to assist pilots in airborne navigation by visualizing instrument data and flight conditions on an augmented reality head-mounted display.

Over the past decade, general aviation pilot's ability to visualize terrain, navigation, traffic (ADS-B), weather, and airspace has become easier, along with improvements in convenience and safety items like emergency, preflight, inflight, and landing checklists. But handy as this information is, accessing it requires pilots to take their eyes off the sky, and often access multiple screens and devices and the need to transpose 2D or textual information to reality outside.

The Aero Glass project is a disruptive technology making use of cutting edge augmented reality technologies in the aviation industry. The team has developed a product that is able to assist pilots in airborne navigation by visualizing instrument data and flight conditions on an augmented reality head-mounted display. Aero Glass is the first to bring Augmented Reality to pilots providing an unparalleled 3D, 360° experience in the cockpit, regardless of the visibility.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Aero Glass was launched 1st of August 2015 and its duration is 24 months. In the first year we have concentrated on technological development and to base our future B2B and B2C relations. We have been actively participating at the most relevant aviation exhibitions as exhibitors and roundtable invitees. Aero Glass has been invited to participate in US Federal Aviation Administration Head Worn Display standardization process, which is facilitated by SAE International, and is part of the aviation A4-HWD and G10-HWD working groups.

First we specified four data sources to feed global data to the Aero Glass database in hierarchical order and the 3D navigation database has been established for selected regions. Than the data display algorithms have been developed to visualize it in a clear and precise graphical form, supporting both the Visual (VFR) and Instrument (IFR) Flight Rules by displaying corresponding navigational data as a 3D graphical overlay. Precise head position tracking has been developed and integrated with the AeroGlass application in order to show the displayed objects in the correct position relative to the user’s viewpoint. Also a ground operation tool has been developed guiding the pilot through the taxiways. The aircraft avionics system has been successfully connected enabling to display Instrumentation data on the glasses. New smart glasses have been selected, and the software has been successfully ported to the new hardware and an own custom made head tracking system was developed from scratch for better performance. A tablet-based monitoring and configuration app was implemented.

Based on the results reached with the head-tracking tasks the research was continued and finished with excessive testing, thus we can now present the marketable prototype. Beside the core part of the research there were some parallel development areas such as the developing of the airport navigation tool for taxiing and the integration of separate data display information into the glasses the obtaining and displaying of aircraft instrumentation data via the glasses.

Aero Glass will serve general aviation worldwide, with primary focus on the European and the US markets. Ways of reaching potential customers, which we intend to use in all marketing communication: Aviation and tech press; Online communities (esp. on Facebook); Trade events and word-of-mouth. As a preparation for the launch and in attempt to increase brand awareness a pre-sales campaign was launched in April 2017, offering Aero Glass kits at a discount price, and also including Aero Glass themed merchandise. The pre-sales page was supported by a social media campaign built on promotional videos. Aero Glass’ communication strategy and activity worked well for the current period of the product lifecycle in informing potential users and building brand trust - especially in the circle of investors and potential business partners in aviation and other sectors (such as the automotive industry) as well. The pre-order campaign helped us build a wider audience and provided useful pointers for future campaigning.

We prepared the website for the product launch. On social media, we dropped hints about the upcoming availability of the product. Prepared promotional videos to accompany the launch with Yetterman Film and uploaded them to our Vimeo account.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Aero Glass is a technology that solves the problems using augmented reality Head-Mounted Displays. Aero Glass is the first to bring Augmented Reality to pilots providing an unparalleled 3D, 360° experience in the cockpit, regardless of the visibility. User experience is visualized on our feature videos that follows the main steps of development: https://vimeo.com/aeroglass.

With Aero Glass we have targeted the General Aviation industry as the appropriate early adopter for the products. With a market size of 1 million global pilots who are accustomed to testing new technologies and paying recurring annual licenses, this market is a perfect launchpad for sales. With the earlier mentioned standardisation process we are positive that our project will radically increase its customers and assist them to fly more safely and precisely that will lead to less time and fuel consuming flights and more positive impacts on environment and economy.
In a broader sense we intend to develop customized versions of its data visualization platform for agriculture, first responder, commercial aviation, drones, gaming (flight simulators), flight training, and potentially the automotive and the maritime industry. Because the software platform serves to graphically display data in 3D from a variety of sources, there are numerous consumer and industrial applications for the technology.

The final Aero Glass prototype consist of two main parts: a custom head-tracking solution and the smart glasses-based app. While the former performs head-tracking from marker recognition to position and orientation data calculations, the latter is responsible for the visualization of data based on said head-tracking information and the geo-spatial Aero Glass database of navigation objects from runways through airspaces to terrain elevation.

We concluded testing with the final prototype hardware. We have tested the essential features and smooth user experience. The solution has reached the maturity (both in terms of hardware and software) that allows for market entry, and safe and enjoyable use by private pilots.

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