Aviation Commons^™

The Use Of Virtual Reality Training Environments For Procedural Training In Fourth-Generation Airliners, Mark Edgar Mccullins

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This study examined the effectiveness of using virtual reality training environments for procedural training in fourth-generation airliners. Its goal was to assess whether the training outcomes from a recurrent training course for FAA certificated Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) technicians, which used a Full Flight Simulator (FFS) to deliver and assess training, differed from the same training delivered using a Virtual Reality (VR) device.

The study used an experimental design with three groups and two within-group measures of training effectiveness. The control group followed the current training program and was assessed in the FFS, while the second group was trained using …

Evaluating The Efficacy Of Virtual Reality (Vr) Training Devices For Pilot Training, Ryan Guthridge, Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a quickly advancing field that has many documented benefits, including highly detailed environments, accuracy to the real world, and low cost of entry in the flight simulation market. At the time of this study, VR technology has not been well tested or widely accepted in the aviation industry. In this mixed methods study, quantitative and qualitative data was collected on beginning-level instrument pilots (n = 120) while performing a visual traffic pattern at an airport. A one-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the equivalence of each group in the study based on previous flight and …

Xr In Aviation Training: Insight From Academia, Industry, And Non-Profit Institutions, Stephanie G. Fussell, Robert L. Thomas, Bejamin Kwasa, James Birdsong, Kurt Reesman, Lori Brow, Joel Scharlat, William T. Ballo

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on education and training. Institutions that relied heavily on face-to-face instruction suddenly needed alternative modalities to keep students on course, forcing educators and trainers to employ a variety of educational techniques via technologies that they may not have had experience with. This shift has brought the advantages – and disadvantages – of augmented, mixed, and virtual reality technologies (collectively, extended reality or XR) for education and training into sharp focus. Programs were quickly assembled, and not always with consideration of learning theories. As learning and training were resumed in in-person settings, academics and …

Comparing Training Effects Of Virtual Reality Flight Simulation To Conventional Pc-Based Flight Simulation, Tianxin Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of the current project was to investigate the effect of utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for flight training by comparing the training results when using conventional desktop flight simulation versus VR flight simulation. Additionally, this project examined the user experience of VR flight simulation and how users’ motivation and satisfaction with VR simulations. This research employed a quasi-transfer of training experiment including 48 participants. Analyses indicated that VR group participants performed better in the post-training maneuver performance on an FTD than in the conventional desktop simulation group. Findings also supported that VR flight simulation could provide a better …

Positive Experiences As Countermeasures To Stress In Spaceflight: An Investigation Of The Experiences Of Astronauts, Morgan M. Eudy

Theses and Dissertations

Long-duration space mission targets such as asteroids, the Moon and Mars in coming years will increase the need to stress management techniques to support crews on increasingly risky, autonomous missions. New stress management approaches may be found by better understanding the reported positive effects resulting from factors in these environments. This study utilized an exploratory case study approach to leverage quantitative and qualitative data to yield research questions for future correlational analysis. This study found that positive experiences and changes in environmental perspectives occurred from viewing Earth from orbit. Furthermore, this study found that personality factors such as extraversion may …

Evaluation Of Low Cost Controllers For Mobile Based Virtual Reality Headsets, Summer Lindsey

Theses and Dissertations

Virtual Reality (VR) is no longer just for training purposes. The consumer VR market has become a large part of the VR world and is growing at a rapid pace. In spite of this growth, there is no standard controller for VR. This study evaluated three different controllers: a gamepad, the Leap Motion, and a touchpad as means of interacting with a virtual environment (VE). There were 23 participants that performed a matching task while wearing a Samsung Gear VR mobile based VR headset. Measures of performance, preference, presence, and enjoyment were collected and compared across controller. Overall, it was …

An Investigation Of Skill Acquisition Under Conditions Of Augmented Reality, Russell P. Milham

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Augmented reality is a virtual environment that integrates rendered content with the experience of the real world. There is evidence suggesting that augmented reality provides for important spatial constancy of objects relative to the real world coordinate system and that this quality contributes to rapid skill acquisition. The qualities of simulation, through the use of augmented reality, may be incorporated into actual job activities to produce a condition of "just-in-time learning." This may make possible the rapid acquisition of information and reliable completion of novel or infrequently performed tasks by individuals possessing a basic skill-set. The purpose of this research …

Architecture, Design, And Implementation Of A Rapidly Prototyped Virtual Environment For A Military Spaceplane, Scott A. Rothermel

Theses and Dissertations

The new Global Engagement vision places increased emphasis on the Air Force's ability to control and exploit space. A military spaceplane combining reliable access to space, high operational tempos, and multi-mission capabilities is in conceptual stages of development. Virtual environment technology provides an opportunity to investigate system requirements and unconventional interface paradigms for this unique vehicle. A virtual environment architecture and design based on support for a rapid prototyping development process, separation of concerns, and user interface development is presented. The rapid prototyping process allowed management of changing requirements via an evolutionary approach to implementation. Separation of the activities performed …

Requirements, Design, And Development Of A Rapidly Reconfigurable, Photo-Realistic, Virtual Cockpit Prototype, Terry A. Adams

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force uses aircraft flight simulators for pilot training and mission rehearsal. They use a variety of simulators for this task ranging with prices ranging from $400,000 to $30,000,000. These simulators have specialized hardware that restricts reuse of their components and increases maintenance costs. Air Education and Training Command wants to reduce simulators cost and improve availability to the operational commands by supporting research in virtual reality flight simulators. This thesis looks at the development of a reconfigurable virtual cockpit in a distributed virtual environment that can be used for different aircraft as well as training scenarios. …

The Photo-Realistic Afit Virtual Cockpit, Milton E. Diaz

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) has pursued research in virtual environments since 1988. This research expands the current capabilities of the AFIT Virtual Cockpit (VC) by increasing the realism of the cockpit environment and improving the pilot's command interface. Realism is improved creating console elements from texture maps and polygonal models; these elements include working dials, switches and circuit breakers. The pilot command interface is improved in part by adapting the AFIT Information Pod using a two-dimensional mouse input to the virtual three-dimensional environment. This immersive virtual environment is also improved by modifications to the Head Mounted Display …

Rendering The Out-The-Window View For The Afit Virtual Cockpit, W. Dean Mccarty

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) is developing a distributed interactive flight simulator, the Virtual Cockpit, using commercial graphics workstations and helmet mounted displays. The Virtual Cockpit communicates with other simulators via local and long-haul networks using the SIMNET protocol. The work reported in this thesis focuses on developing the terrain database for the synthetic environment and on rendering the pilot's view of the database. There are many different file formats for describing 3- dimensional geometric polygonal objects. An analysis of three formats, AFIT GEOM, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) DRP, and Software Systems' Flight, is presented. Each file …

A Synthetic Environment Flight Simulator: The Afit Virtual Cockpit, John C. Switzer

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the design and implementation of a part of the Virtual Cockpit: a synthetic environment, distributed network flight simulator. The goal of the project was to prove the concept that this type of flight simulator could fill the gap between high-end, very expensive flight simulators and low-end game quality flight simulators. Discussed are: object-oriented design techniques, multi-processor utilization, the flight dynamics model, synthetic environment technology, the frame-rate vs. realism issue, and the interfaces to a realistic joystick and throttle.