Developing an Augmented Reality Application for Space Mission Training
An ongoing collaboration with the Aerospace Engineering department
Project Overview
The Research in User eXperience (RUX) Lab under Dr. Barbara Chaparro and the Space Trajectories and Applications Research (STAR) Lab under Dr. David Garcia-Canales are working to develop an easy-to-use AR system for space mission planning. RUX has focused on incorporating a user-centered approach to develop the AR prototype that enhances collaboration, ease-of-use, and visualization techniques.
Problem
The field of astrodynamics currently relies on highly specialized tools for spacecraft trajectory design, resulting in intricate trajectories sometimes difficult to visualize on 2D screens.
This resulted in wanting to design a user friendly AR interface that both novices and experts can use for various astrodynamics propagations.
Figure 1. Ansys STK (Popular industry tool)
Heuristic Evaluation, Tabular Task Analysis, Task Decomposition, and Systematic Human Error Reduction and Prediction Approach (SHERPA)
Solution
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Contextual Inquiry conducted with Subject Matter Experts
Figure 2. FreeFlyer (Popular industry tool)
Associated Publications
Aerospace Engineering Team
1 Master’s student
3 undergraduate students
Advisor: Dr. David Garcia-Canales
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The project is still ongoing, however, different methods have been conducted to evaluate the continuously iterated prototype. These results have shown that the prototype takes less time to complete than one of the traditional tools, Ansys STK. The team has conducted in-person usability testing of the current interface with Aerospace Engineering students from ERAU to identify issues and provide recommendations to the developers. From these recommendations, we will continue to develop the user interface as new functions and features get added to the application.
Human Factors Team
2 Ph.D students
5 Master’s students
1 undergraduate student
Advisor: Dr. Barbara Chaparro
Usability Testing with Aerospace Engineering students at ERAU that have taken AE 313: Orbital Mechanics
My Role
Research Timeline
Leading an HF team of graduate HF students
Conducting UX research methodologies to improve design
Providing user interface design recommendations based on HF principles and concepts
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Heuristic Evaluation and iterative designing of the interfaces will be completed as recommendations are implemented by developers
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Process will repeat until the tool is functional and usable for both novice and expert users
Figma Prototyping
Using Figma, I translated low-fidelity paper wireframes into a high-fidelity prototype. Then, I improved them by adding interface features found within the Microsoft Mixed Reality Toolkit 3. At this stage, the interface was deployed to the HoloLens 2 for usability testing. In the future, there will be further user testing and more iterations of this prototype.
Aros, M., Cooks, K., Materne, L., Huggins, J., Anderson, J., Geliga-Torres, J., Chaparro, B., & Canales, D. (2024, October). Applying User-Centered Design to Space Mission Planning [Poster Abstract]. 2024 ASPIRE Annual Meeting, Phoenix, AZ, United States.
Anderson, J. D., Geliga, J. A., Tang, K. Y., Kuykendall, K. P., Canales, D., & Chaparro, B. S. (2024). Immersive Framework for Designing Trajectories Using Augmented Reality. In AIAA SCITECH 2024 Forum (p. 1057).
Geliga-Torres, J., Aros, M., Anderson, J., Cooks, K., Martinez-Samaniego, E., Canales, D., Chaparro, B., & Guzzetti, D. (2024, November). A Human-Centric Comparative Analysis of Trajectory Design Methods for Multi-body Dynamics [Poster Abstract]. 2024 Rocky Mountain American Astronautical Society, United States.