VR and AR Environments for Virtual Cockpit Enhancements

The recent evolution of cockpit design has moved from the established glass cockpits into new directions. Among them is the virtual enhancement of cockpits by augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) displays. Well known in aviation are helmet mounted see-through displays, but opaque VR displays are of increasing interest also. This technology enables the pilot to use virtual instrumentation as an add-on to the real cockpit. Even a totally virtualized instrumentation is possible. Furthermore, VR technology allows the fast prototyping and pilot training in cockpit environments that are still in development before even a single real instrument is built. We show how commercial off-the-shelf VR hardware can be used to build a prototyping environment. We demonstrate advantages and challenges when using software engines usually built for the games industry. We describe our own integration concept, which re-uses as much of our own software as possible and allows integration with minimal parallel development.