Navy/Soartech

In Brief
Navy F/A-18 fighter pilots wanted a digital solution that would lighten the physical and mental load that comes with the traditional paper kneeboard. projekt202 conducted industrial design and UX research to digitize a paper kneeboard, then collaborated with a military contractor to create a proof-of-concept demo. We created a new interface that featured a UX-focused design that was collaborative between the iOS application, the AI system, and the flight simulator.

The Work
Strategy & Innovation
User Research
Design
Prototyping

Impacts

With SoarTech, a military contractor, projekt202 worked to take the findings and prototype designs into practice. This resulted in a fully-coded proof-of-concept demo and iOS application.

A Unity flight simulator was created that mimics the conditions inside the cockpit and sends mocked environmental and aircraft data to the application. An AI-drive user interface system was also incorporated into the kneepad demo.

The interface can understand vital information such as location, phase of flight, aircraft conditions, and weather to facilitate decision-making better. This data includes providing the pilot with up-to-date flight path changes, emergency procedures, or changes to overall mission goals.

Impacts

Our research and focus on the holistic experience led us to a wide range of user solutions in the user interface and physical space. We created a new interface for SoarTech’s existing AI that featured a UXfocused collaborative design between the iOS application, the AI system, and the flight simulator with our designers and developers.
The user interface had to enable easy access to mission-critical information on-the-fly while also accommodating three lighting modes to account for environmental lighting.

Deliverables included:
• iOS app and native iOS design & development expertise
• User-experience-centered design
• Providing an interface for SoarTech’s existing AI