Cockpit of the future

ALTEN helps a European aircraft manufacturer to define the new functions to be introduced into current passenger aircraft by 2025. In order to quickly validate the new HMI (Human Machine Interface) concepts among test pilots, ALTEN has developed its own immersive environment creation platform based on the VR (Virtual Reality) technology.

Over the coming decade, air traffic will increase greatly and data exchanges between the ground and aircraft will become denser. Amultidisciplinary team of 20 ALTEN consultantengineers,system engineers, UX/UI designers, etc.uses feedback from pilots and its in-house research to:

• define new key functions to develop at the level of the cockpit
• highlight the best possible uses for these functions by pilots (ergonomy, display, controls and information, etc.)

The aim being toreduce the crew’s workloadandimprove the safety of air operations.

The scenario defined and the pilots must validate the human-machine interface modifications. The immersive VR technology places the test pilot in avirtual cockpit, that way the cockpit design team can quickly confirm whether the user has access to the information required.

This digital revolution greatly reduces cost and design times by replacing physical simulation models.