With so many screens available, and few physical commands through buttons and levers, we can wonder what the future of aircraft cockpits will be like, and it seems that the British BAE Systems is already on the way to a solution.
The new proposal is to use Virtual Reality in favor of aviation, something that is already minimally done through HUDs, commercial aircraft, and helmets equipped with HUDs or transparent screens, as in the case of the F-35.
But the BAE development team wants to go further, creating a system that allows the pilot to command attacks only with through the brain, indicate attack zones based on geographic location and directly in the pilot's eyes, with the possibility of zoom command estimated area and even aircraft performance data right in the eye.
The project is so advanced that it considers replacing the screens of an aircraft with something virtual, projected onto a surface that is also virtual. This could be the end of the traditional cockpits we know, as the commands will also be virtual.
“In of future concepts, we're looking at what we're calling a 'wearable cockpit.' Here, you remove many of the physical elements of the cockpit and replace it with a virtual display, projected through the helmet. Essentially, it is a software-only cockpit that is upgradeable, adaptable,it is reconfigurable”, said the project's technology lead, Jean Page.
“In such a world, we need to think about which controls are critical for the pilot and then make them easier to manage. Eye tracking gives you the option of looking at something to highlight it and then making a gesture to “press” a button, rather than having a series of physical buttons on the aircraft.”, added Jean Page about the new technologies being developed.
The intention is to clean the cockpit a lot, which can be a little strange for current pilots, as the Glass Cockpit reached a good technological level, where a HUD helps the pilot a lot by providing vital information for a landing procedure, for example. And there is also another point, where you lose one of your senses, which is the tactile part of controlling the aircraft.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=67&v=xRbQXL1oMqY
But for a combat situation the speed of everything can make the difference, look in the video above how an F-35 helmet is able to inform the pilot of the aircraft that are close to him, this is an important part of locating a plane which is miles from your aircraft. For BAE, this is also a way to increase the relevance of warning signs, without taking your attention away from what is in front of you.
Regarding the commands, we can really expect something based on “virtual menus”, which appear in front of the pilot's head, as well as in this Google project, called “Soli”.
It is a resource that demands a certain level of computational power, but a considerably small hardware, a good fault of the miniaturization of the informatics, highlighted in the last years because of the mobile devices.
Another point that we can consider is communication with the helmet via fiber optics, due to the amount of information and high resolution and video.
Or something like that suggested by Leap Motion, where screens with several options automatically appear in front of you from a standardized command in X place of the aircraft.
“The really smart part will be that based on where the pilot is looking, we can infer the pilot's objective and use intelligent systems to task performance and reduce the pilot's workload. We want to do this in a way that doesn't always ask for permission, because that would get very annoying very quickly, but equally, it's essential that it's always clear to the pilot what task the smart system is doing."Jean added.
Research on this system will continue, and the UK intends to introduce the technology in the Tempest, a new 6th generation fighter that will be launched in the next decade.
