im.FLUGE

im.FLUGE explores urban air mobility by using an experience simulation to test different interfaces for passengers during flight and navigation in mobility hubs. The interfaces for the flight have different fidelities with increasing amount of flight relevant information. FH Joanneum was responsible for the flight path and the Center for Energy at AIT created the mobility hub 3D models.

My part included developing the XR simulation for the flight in Unity, integrating a motion platform, designing and developing the interfaces for the flight and creating/adapting a 3D model of the drone.

This is an FFG funded project and part of the TAKE OFF 2021 call.

Publications

Development

The drone model was created in Blender and imported into Unity. The interfaces have been designed in Adobe XD and developed with Dear ImGui in C++ as a custom native plugin for Unity. The plugin creates meshes which are sent to Unity and displayed on the passenger screen. The environment is created with the Cesium plugin using Bing imagery and 3D models provided by Stadt Wien. A Next Level Racing Motion Platform V3 is used to simulate the drone movement.

Low fidelity in a foggy environment

Showing only the progress and no operator. Only beep sounds are played to indicate actions.

Medium fidelity in a day environment

Showing a 2D map with a flight path. Medium fidelity also shows a 3D map with less information than the high fidelity interfaces. Shows an image of the remote operator. In addition to the beep sounds of the low fidelity interface the medium fidelity interface introduces a robotic female voice.

High fidelity in a night environment

Shows a 3D map with more information than the medium fidelity interfaces. The 2D map, which is currently not shown, shows additional information including areas of interest. The operator image is replaced by a video and audio live stream of the remote operator.

Flight Log

All variations have been documented on YouTube.