Nicholas Kasdaglis, a Ph.D. student and research assistant in the Human-Centered Design Institute at Florida Institute of Technology, has been awarded free licenses to use glass cockpit design software from Presagis to better understand and eventually help minimize the leading cause of commercial aviation fatalities.

Kasdaglis, who has his master’s degree in human factors from the Florida Tech College of Aeronautics, will use Presagis VAPS XT software as part of his Ph.D. dissertation focusing on the advancement of cockpit design to support pilots in avoiding, recognizing, and recovering from loss of control in-flight (LOCI). Presagis specializes in applications for a wide variety of commercial and military markets including glass cockpits, aircraft simulation, UAS/UAV navigation, sensor and mission training and ground and naval vehicle simulators.

Kasdaglis is focusing on this particular problem because LOCI accounts for the largest number of fatalities in commercial aviation. “This really is a wonderful opportunity that will help in the development of future life-saving tools” Kasdaglis said.

Using Presagis VAPS XT, Kasdaglis will be able to quickly prototype and test various display configurations, allowing him to better adapt the displays to take full advantage of the human strengths and weaknesses, an idea that is central to human-centered design. VAPS XT is used by major avionics and airframe manufacturers to design all types of embedded display graphics ranging from digital and analog instrumentation to next-generation menu-based displays. With its open and extensible object-oriented architecture, the software offers unparalleled control and flexibility in the design of dynamic, interactive, real-time human-machine-interfaces. Used worldwide, VAPS XT is the only embedded graphics tool that allows users to define both object appearance and display logic in one easy graphical editor.

“Security and airworthiness are crucial when designing aircraft cockpits and avionics systems. We are honored to support Mr. Kasdaglis’s research work aimed at making flying safer in the future” said Stéphane Blondin, Head of Product Management and Marketing at Presagis.