Abstract
"VFR-2-SKY": The conception and development of a mobile air navigation application for Android OS
The last decade has been characterized by an enormous rise in the mobile computing sector and its instrumentalization for human needs and goals. Some smartphone applications cover the aviation sector and a number of products appeared on the market in the last few years. Based on this development the idea of an own air navigation application for pilots who fly under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) arose within Austro Control GmbH (ACG), the Austrian air navigation service provider, in Vienna. Starting from a first draft-application for Google's Android operating system, developed within the scope of an internship at ACG in summer 2013, this thesis presents the conceptualization and implementation of a further advanced prototype of an air navigation application called "VFR-2-SKY". The fundamentals and concepts of location-based services (LBS), human-computer interaction (HCI) and interaction design (IxD) and its principles serve as basis and build a theoretical framework for a user-centered design approach for the creation of this air navigation application. This design approach is guided by predefined requirements which are validated and ranked by VFR pilots within the scope of a questionnaire. The results of this questionnaire are used to delineate concrete user goals and bring the preset requirements into a rank by importance, and further for the construction of personas and scenarios in order to show the intended functionalities of "VFR-2-SKY". The implementational part of the thesis describes the preparation of base maps, the peculiarities of aeronautical charts, the creation of databases for Android devices and the development of the graphical user interface for the application. Virtual and real world tests of the software round off the topic. The overall goal of the thesis is to present and apply the fundamentals and concepts of LBS, HCI and IxD and use them to develop a functioning prototype of an air navigation application.
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