THE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

Under the provisions of the regulations for the degree 

MASTER OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 

on 

Monday, April 28, 2025

3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. EST 

West Architecture 155

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Yuyang Luo

will present a thesis defense entitled,  

"User-Centered HMI Design for eVTOL Vehicles in Urban Air Mobility: Smooth Transition Between Driving and Flying Modes"   

Advisor:  

   Wayne Li, Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design 

Committee:  

                 Dr. Yixiao Wang, Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design  

Bruce Walker, Georgia Tech School of Psychology

               
  Faculty and students are invited to attend this presentation. 

Abstract  

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) promises to relieve metropolitan traffic by introducing electric vertical‑take‑off‑and‑landing (eVTOL) vehicles that can operate both on roads and in low‑altitude. However, major companies are still in the exploration stage for a suitable operating interface and no conclusion has been reached. This thesis proposes, prototypes, and evaluates a user-centric human-machine interface (HMI) designed to minimize the cognitive and ergonomic costs of switching between ground and flight modes, allowing regular users with no flight experience to quickly adapt, thereby achieving the goal of popularizing eVTOL, an emerging means of transportation.

The design couples an adaptive display suite—a head‑up display, a primary instrument cluster, and a central panel—with a convertible control device that morphs from an automotive steering wheel into dual joysticks for flight. Grounding the interaction vocabulary in familiar automotive metaphors, the interface layers visual, auditory, and haptic feedback to maintain situation awareness.

A simulator built in Unreal Engine 5 hosts scenario‑based tasks representing a full urban mission profile. Mixed participants (no piloting and piloting background) perform tests while eye‑tracking, heart‑rate variability, NASA‑TLX, task‑completion time, error rate, and path‑tracking RMSE are recorded.

Anticipated contributions include a validated framework for dual‑mode eVTOL HMIs, design guidelines for multimodal feedback that leverages automotive mental models, and empirical evidence to inform emerging UAM safety standards and certification pathways.