Intelligent User Interfaces
CS 525U - Spring 2008

Task-Based User Interface Project

Orville Flight Assistant

Matt Tavares

Appliation Overview

This application is designed to help a user through an aircraft flight plan. Every aircraft comes with a flight manual, which is a list of tasks a pilot must perform in order to fly an aircraft. Here is an example flight plan for the Cessna 172, which is the source in which the task model for this project was based on. Orville can be used to teach, or it can be used as a collaborator. From the teaching perspective, Orville walks the user through the appropriate tasks in the flight plan, and will tell the user the reasons for those tasks if questioned. From the collaboration perspective, Orville can also perform tasks for the user, and send instructions to the hypothetical control system. For example, Orville can send a throttle setting or a fuel-oxygen mixture to the control system if the user wishes. I spoke with David Spacek, an MD-11 pilot, who said the training for the MD-11 is mostly concerned with teaching the pilot to collaborate with the autopilot system. I also consulted Brian McCormick, a pilot for Cape Air and Continental Airlines, for various flight instrument questions.

ANSI/CEA-2018 Task Model:

Executable Jar File ("java -Xmx512M -jar Orville.jar")

Source Code (Eclipse project file)

Detailed Project Description

For more information about this project and/or the CEA-2018 standard, contact Professor Charles Rich.


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