Evaluating the Effects of Path Visualization on the Level of Trust of Urban Air Mobility VTOL Passengers

The current one is a historical period characterized by a close interdependence between everyday life and constantly evolving technological progress. In this context, an extremely promising field of research is Urban Air Mobility (UAM), which envisions a radically innovative conception of public transportation. This domain is being investigated globally by many different players, including the Sustainable Mobility Center initiative (MOST) funded by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The initiative aims to investigate, among other aspects of UAM, the introduction of aircrafts with Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) capabilities within urban areas to provide new passenger transportation possibilities. The concept is an interesting and promising approach to possibly improve the efficiency and accessibility of urban transportation. This thesis work focuses on evaluating different designs of the Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) for the passengers of these aircrafts. The designs are supported by an examination of the state–of–the art of the field. Specifically, the work concentrated on studying different ways to visualise the flight path along the phases of take-off, cruise, and landing under different weather/daylight conditions. This is the first study that takes into account these two factors (flight phase, external conditions) to analyse the impact on the passengers’ trust of different path visualizations.