Investigating the Flexible Hydrogen Aircraft System Interface Design using the XR Co-Design Approach

Kurzfassung

On the road to climate-neutral aviation and the achievement of global climate targets, research into hydrogen-powered propulsion systems is increasingly playing a key role for the industry. Despite a number of advantages over conventional propulsion systems, the development and integration of this technology is extremely complex and poses a particular challenge for the cabin. Novel propulsion systems must fulfil a variety of regulatory, industrial and economic stakeholder requirements in order to ensure the safe and efficient operation of new aircraft concepts. In addition, new system components and their interfaces to the subsystems in existing and future aircraft concepts must be understood in order to significantly reduce time-consuming and expensive development cycles. As part of its research focus, the German Aerospace Center is therefore developing methods for the digital development and evaluation of future cabin concepts. Within this context, technologies such as XR (eXtended Reality) are playing an increasingly important role and offer numerous opportunities to experience new concepts immersively, map information and translate requirements together with user groups directly in virtual models. This allows a virtual, collaborative, and immersive real-time integration of novel system interfaces in conjunction with key stakeholder groups (co-design). Therefore, the following paper addresses how collaborative and immersive virtual reality modeling can be used to design flexible and requirement-specific interfaces for innovative system architectures in sustainable and future aircraft cabins. For this purpose, a XR co-design study is conducted and evaluated based on two different integration scenarios. With the help of two expert groups, the definition of fictitious system interfaces is carried out on different scenarios using a physical mockup and a virtual scenario with the help of the VR design tool Gravity Sketch. In addition to recording objective measurement data (time, ideas), subjective measurement data is recorded and evaluated with regard to system usability and co-creation experience. The results of the study indicate that both physical and virtual mockups enable an enhanced user experience and time�efficient creation of different ideas. It was shown that both scenarios, individually and in combination are suitable for defining complex and flexible system interfaces in a time-efficient and requirements�centered manner as part of the XR co-design process. In addition, the findings of the paper provide a basis for linking user-centered XR co-design design methodologies to cabin system design methods, considering essential requirements in real-time and in the early system interface definition process. Besides saving time and personnel resources, it can prevent the production of costly physical mockups and elaborate validation steps. Consequently, decisions in the development process of complex, sustainable, and novel aircraft systems can be made more targeted and simplified.