The Imersifi team is proud to have been awarded second place winners of the Airbus future of flight challenge. The challenge, which attracted more than 60 submissions from individuals, teams, and companies was posted on the HeroX crowdsourcing platform – generating more than 16,800 views. Airbus was looking for immersive, experiential ways in which a passenger can interact with the metaverse during the travel process, and how this exciting new technology could be applied to revolutionize the future of air travel.

The submissions were judged by 14 employees from across the Airbus Commercial Aircraft business in terms of user experience, creativity, and novelty, as well as ease of implementation. Five winners were then chosen to share a prize pool.

The winning entry was from Capgemini, an international information technology services company. Their proposal was for a virtual town square with many branching activities for passengers during flight. The Imersifi team is gratified that there is a significant amount of synergy between our Airbus-Verse Hub application and Capgemini’s town square, with many similar offerings for things such as passenger shopping and both addressing the needs of passengers when in flight.

You can find out what Airbus had to say about the challenge here.

For a deeper dive into our winning submission and exactly how we implemented the metaverse into the future of flight, the full solution is below:

Solution Overview

During flight passengers can immerse themselves in the Airbus-verse, a multiplayer VR environment to keep them entertained while flying. This metaverse will allow passengers to socialize with others who are onboard while remaining in the safety of their seats. Passengers can socialize, play games, relax, or go shopping.

Benefits:

• Socialize with others on the flight while remaining safely seated
• Distraction for those who are nervous-flyers
• Affordable to implement but introduces a new innovative travel experience
• Added value to the flight experience, catering to all age ranges
• Takes passengers away from the confines of their seat

VR Application Features & Capabilities:

• A powerful social application
  • Full peer-to-peer spatial voice chat
    • Ability to mute self
    • Ability to mute others
  • Walk around the 3D environment with others
  • Passengers can type their name on entry (real name or alias)
  • Passengers can select a color to represent themselves as well as an accessory to wear
• Easy/intuitive to use
• A calming relaxation zone ‘Airbus Relax’
• A shop where passengers can pre-order from the destination airport duty-free.
• A fun area for gaming ‘Airbus Arcade’ including basketball (easy to play while seated and does not require much arm movement)
• A tourist information zone including data on the current flight as well as the weather forecast for the destination, a 3D map, and available excursions
• A large globe is the center point of the environment, showing the current aircraft’s position and flight path updating in real-time

Project Trailer

A Detailed Look into the Airbus-Verse

We have created a meta-verse shared space named the ‘Airbus-verse’. The video walk-through shows the experience from a passenger’s perspective. 

The passenger starts in a lobby where they can enter their name or an alias if they wish to remain anonymous. They can then select a color from a pre-set list or use the dynamic color picker. Finally, the passenger can select an optional accessory for their virtual avatar to further personalize their experience. 

Once clicking ‘Join’ the passenger is transported into the central hub. Starting near the centerpiece of the environment – the globe shows the current aircraft position and flight path. The position of the aircraft updates in real-time. Instantly seeing others walking around, the passenger can then walk around and talk to anyone. All audio is 3D spatial, as in the real world, so passengers can have conversations with those near them. 

The 1st of 4 rooms is the ‘Airbus Relax’ room. This is a peaceful room with low ambient lighting mimicking a living room. Soft piano background music provides calming ambiance and the open space allows for time alone or to socialize with other passengers.

The 2nd room contains information on the current flight and destination. In this example, the flight is direct from London to Sydney on the A350. The flight time is displayed along with the current progress. Passengers can view the weather forecast for Sydney, and available excursions to book and explore a 3D table-top miniature Sydney.

The 3rd room is the ‘Airbus Arcade’. This is a fun room for passengers who wish to play games. The arcade has background ambient sounds and contains a physics-based pool table as well as a collection of functional basketball arcade machines. All objects and scores are synced over the network, allowing for a fun multiplayer social experience. 

The final room is a virtual duty-free shop. Passengers can browse items on the shelf which correspond to available stock at the destination airport. As the app is network connected data can be synced to the real shops’ stock management system as well as the passenger’s “Airbus Retail” account. Passengers can grab items and place them into the basket at the checkout, each user has their own basket which allows for private shopping, and only the passenger themselves can place items in. At the arrival airport, the passenger can pick up the pre-ordered items from a designated collection point or locker system.

Want to Leverage Metaverse-style Applications?

Could your business or organization benefit from applying metaverse technology like the above? reach out to the Imersifi team and share your ideas and let us support your development. https://imersifi.com/contact/