Passenger Plus | Pilots Plus
Awards & Nominations
Passenger Plus has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!
The Challenge | Pilots Plus
Passenger Plus
When we fly over a city, Passenger Plus will identify which cities we are over, the points of interests, cultural interests, and local music and make available the experience of walking in the cities below us and listening the local music, using VR.
EXPLANATION
Air travel, shortens the distance between countries and between cities. However, because we enter an enclosed controlled environment of a steel tube in one place, and exit in another, we have no visceral experience of the places in between. We fly over hundreds different cities, natural marvels, and cultures, but we feel no connection to them, at 39,000 feet there is no human scale experience that we can connect to, reducing whole swathes of the country to “flyover country.” NASA and our project, Passenger Plus, will reverse this trend.
There are a billion passengers a year in just the United States. Imagine the missed opportunities: how many cities, and, countries did we fly over with no clue about the richness of geography, points of interest, and cultural locations?
Passenger Plus, is a Virtual Reality backed application, that uses Intel Edison software and NASA resources. When we fly over a city, our application will identify which cities we are over, and make available the experience of walking in the cities below us, using VR. To create a multi-sense immersive experience, the application will identify the local music and artists and play in our ears.
TECHNOLOGY
Passenger Plus can be used with many commercially available Virtual Reality gears such as Oculus, Google Cardboard, etc. Using airplanes’ computer system and GPS, Passenger Plus can locate when passengers are flying over a city. The landmarks, cultural locations and points of interests are already loaded in the airplane computer system. The smart application will capture the city the passengers are flying over and asked them “Where do they want to be at this city now”. A passenger will choose a location such as Time Square in New York, then wear his/her VR headsets, start to wander in the city while flying over the city. Passenger Plus will also identify the local music and artists, and play the songs in passenger’s ears. The application will use advanced analytics and semantic search to keep its databases up to date and identify new trends in the city.
The application will provide enhanced UI experience. The passenger may choose to learn about history of the city that they are flying over. Then, they can just listen to history and browse through historical pictures. Using NASA Images of Change, Passenger Plus will provide the geographical changes for cities over the years caused by human impact.
DEMO
Let’s see a demo, to feel about Passenger Plus.
William, is our passenger, and he is returning home to Calgary, after vacationing in Hawaii. Although his vacation is over, with Passenger Plus he can still experience a different city. Now, he is flying over Seattle. Passenger Plus identifies that he is over Seattle and asks William: “Where do you want to be in Seattle?” William chooses that he wants to be in Pike Place Market. He is wandering around Pike Place and the application identifies the local music. Yesss, he is hearing Nirvana. Next, William wants to see how the Seattle changes over the time. He is thinking, we created a great and vibrant city, what did it look like before? Using NASA Images of Change, William can see how the city changes over the years.
VISION
- Astronauts in Space Stations could be away from earth for months. Using Passenger Plus and VR, they could feel being in earth at any given time.
- Using NASA Images of Change and interactive VR experience, we can show the impact of climate changes over the time for major cities. Generating computer simulations and advance climate models, we can show the passengers how these cities they are flying over will change in the future.
- Some of the passengers may be afraid of flights, claustrophobia and vertigo. There is a substantial amount research that has been done to treat these patients using VR. Passenger Plus could be utilized to help these people to reduce their symptoms.
Passenger Plus will change your entire flight experience. It will allow you visit cities when you just fly over and enrich your travel experience.
Team
Erhan Eren - Aerospace Engineer, business leader, entrepreneur. Product Manager and team lead for Passenger Plus. Passionate about aerospace, space technologies, AI.
William Zulueta - 17 Year old home schooler and programmer. Passionate about all things Android, Google and Mobile. Mobile developer for Passenger Plus.
Rahul Pillalamarri - 9th Grader, Idea generator, Loves engineering, passionate about innovation and engineering, and loves to learn.
Michael Constans - Full stack developer. Loves about reading. Technical story writer and editor for Passenger plus.
Resources:
OpenFlights Airport, Airline, and Route Databases
Virtual reality 'could help treat vertigo' - BBC News
Turns out the answer to virtual reality sickness is right in front of your face
Visual vertigo: Virtual reality to help diagnose and treat patients
SpaceApps is a NASA incubator innovation program.