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NASA NTRS1980

Navigation errors encountered using weather-mapping radar for helicopter IFR guidance to oil rigs

In 1978 a joint NASA-FAA helicopter flight test was conducted to examine the use of weather-mapping radar for IFR guidance during landing approaches to oil rig helipads. The following navigation errors were measured: total system error, radar-range error, radar-bearing error, and flight technical error. Three problem areas were identified: (1) operational problems leading to pilot blunders, (2) poor navigation to the downwind final approach point, and (3) pure homing on final approach. Analysis of these problem areas suggests improvement in the radar equipment, approach procedure, and pilot training, and gives valuable insight into the development of future navigation aids to serve the off-shore oil industry.

Phillips, J. D.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Vigilance problems in orbiter processing

A pilot experiment was done to determine what factors influence potential performance errors related to vigilance in Orbiter processing activities. The selected activities include post flight inspection for burned gap filler material and pre-rollout inspection for tile processing shim material. It was determined that the primary factors related to performance decrement were the color of the target and the difficulty of the target presentation.

Swart, William W.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Instrument Display Visual Angles for Conventional Aircraft and the MQ-9 Ground Control Station

Aircraft instrument panels should be designed such that primary displays are in optimal viewing location to minimize pilot perception and response time. Human Factors engineers define three zones (i.e. "cones") of visual location: 1) "Easy Eye Movement" (foveal vision); 2) "Maximum Eye Movement" (peripheral vision with saccades), and 3) "Head Movement" (head movement required). Instrument display visual angles were measured to determine how well conventional aircraft (T-34, T-38, F- 15B, F-16XL, F/A-18A, U-2D, ER-2, King Air, G-III, B-52H, DC-10, B747-SCA) and the MQ-9 ground control station (GCS) complied with these standards, and how they compared with each other. Methods: Selected instrument parameters included: attitude, pitch, bank, power, airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, heading, turn rate, slip/skid, AOA, flight path, latitude, longitude, course, bearing, range and time. Vertical and horizontal visual angles for each component were measured from the pilot s eye position in each system. Results: The vertical visual angles of displays in conventional aircraft lay within the cone of "Easy Eye Movement" for all but three of the parameters measured, and almost all of the horizontal visual angles fell within this range. All conventional vertical and horizontal visual angles lay within the cone of "Maximum Eye Movement". However, most instrument vertical visual angles of the MQ-9 GCS lay outside the cone of "Easy Eye Movement", though all were within the cone of "Maximum Eye Movement". All the horizontal visual angles for the MQ-9 GCS were within the cone of "Easy Eye Movement". Discussion: Most instrument displays in conventional aircraft lay within the cone of "Easy Eye Movement", though mission-critical instruments sometimes displaced less important instruments outside this area. Many of the MQ-9 GCS systems lay outside this area. Specific training for MQ-9 pilots may be needed to avoid increased response time and potential error during flight.

Bendrick, Gregg A.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Instrument Display Visual Angles for Conventional Aircraft and the MQ-9 Ground Control Station

Aircraft instrument panels should be designed such that primary displays are in optimal viewing location to minimize pilot perception and response time. Human Factors engineers define three zones (i.e. cones ) of visual location: 1) "Easy Eye Movement" (foveal vision); 2) "Maximum Eye Movement" (peripheral vision with saccades), and 3) "Head Movement (head movement required). Instrument display visual angles were measured to determine how well conventional aircraft (T-34, T-38, F- 15B, F-16XL, F/A-18A, U-2D, ER-2, King Air, G-III, B-52H, DC-10, B747-SCA) and the MQ-9 ground control station (GCS) complied with these standards, and how they compared with each other. Selected instrument parameters included: attitude, pitch, bank, power, airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, heading, turn rate, slip/skid, AOA, flight path, latitude, longitude, course, bearing, range and time. Vertical and horizontal visual angles for each component were measured from the pilot s eye position in each system. The vertical visual angles of displays in conventional aircraft lay within the cone of "Easy Eye Movement" for all but three of the parameters measured, and almost all of the horizontal visual angles fell within this range. All conventional vertical and horizontal visual angles lay within the cone of Maximum Eye Movement. However, most instrument vertical visual angles of the MQ-9 GCS lay outside the cone of Easy Eye Movement, though all were within the cone of Maximum Eye Movement. All the horizontal visual angles for the MQ-9 GCS were within the cone of "Easy Eye Movement". Most instrument displays in conventional aircraft lay within the cone of Easy Eye Movement, though mission-critical instruments sometimes displaced less important instruments outside this area. Many of the MQ-9 GCS systems lay outside this area. Specific training for MQ-9 pilots may be needed to avoid increased response time and potential error during flight. The learning objectives include: 1) Know three physiologic cones of eye/head movement; 2) Understand how instrument displays comply with these design principles in conventional aircraft and an uninhabited aerial vehicle system. Which of the following is NOT a recognized physiologic principle of instrument display design? Cone of Easy Eye Movement 2) Cone of Binocular Eye Movement 3) Cone of Maximum Eye Movement 4) Cone of Head Movement 5) None of the above. Answer: # 2) Cone of Binocular Eye Movement

Kamine, Tovy Haber↗

NASA NTRS1996

Loss of Situation Awareness in Pilots: Analysis of Incident Reports

Approximately 75% of all aviation accidents and incidents are attributable to human failures in monitoring, managing, and operating system. Tactical decision errors were found to be a factor in 25 of 37 major US air transport accidents between 1978 and 1990. These two facts demonstrate the inability of some pilots to maintain situation awareness. Situation awareness (SA) is defined as 'the perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future". Thus, when a pilot loses SA, he or she is unable to ether perceive, comprehend, or project the status of the aircraft. In pilots terms, he or she has 'fallen behind the airplane'. Our study this summer involved an analysis of 190 NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) reports.

Eric B. Villeda↗

NASA NTRS1983

An investigation of motion base cueing and G-seat cueing on pilot performance in a simulator

The effect of G-seat cueing (GSC) and motion-base cueing (MBC) on performance of a pursuit-tracking task is studied using the visual motion simulator (VMS) at Langley Research Center. The G-seat, the six-degree-of-freedom synergistic platform motion system, the visual display, the cockpit hardware, and the F-16 aircraft mathematical model are characterized. Each of 8 active F-15 pilots performed the 2-min-43-sec task 10 times for each experimental mode: no cue, GSC, MBC, and GSC + MBC; the results were analyzed statistically in terms of the RMS values of vertical and lateral tracking error. It is shown that lateral error is significantly reduced by either GSC or MBC, and that the combination of cues produces a further, significant decrease. Vertical error is significantly decreased by GSC with or without MBC, whereas MBC effects vary for different pilots. The pattern of these findings is roughly duplicated in measurements of stick force applied for roll and pitch correction.

Mckissick, B. T.↗

NASA NTRS1991

The impact of cockpit automation on crew coordination and communication. Volume 1: Overview, LOFT evaluations, error severity, and questionnaire data

The purpose was to examine, jointly, cockpit automation and social processes. Automation was varied by the choice of two radically different versions of the DC-9 series aircraft, the traditional DC-9-30, and the glass cockpit derivative, the MD-88. Airline pilot volunteers flew a mission in the simulator for these aircraft. Results show that the performance differences between the crews of the two aircraft were generally small, but where there were differences, they favored the DC-9. There were no criteria on which the MD-88 crews performed better than the DC-9 crews. Furthermore, DC-9 crews rated their own workload as lower than did the MD-88 pilots. There were no significant differences between the two aircraft types with respect to the severity of errors committed during the Line-Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) flight. The attitude questionnaires provided some interesting insights, but failed to distinguish between DC-9 and MD-88 crews.

Wiener, Earl L.↗

NASA NTRS2016

Piloted Well Clear Performance Evaluation of Detect and Avoid Systems with Suggestive Guidance

Regulations to establish operational and performance requirements for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are being developed by a consortium of government, industry and academic institutions (RTCA, 2013). Those requirements will apply to the new detect-and-avoid (DAA) systems and other equipment necessary to integrate UAS with the United States (U.S) National Airspace System (NAS) and will be determined according to their contribution to the overall safety case. That safety case requires demonstration that DAA-equipped UAS collectively operating in the NAS meet an airspace safety threshold (AST). Several key gaps must be closed in order to link equipment requirements to an airspace safety case. Foremost among these is calculation of the systems risk ratio, the degree to which a particular system mitigates violation of an aircraft separation standard (FAA, 2013). The risk ratio of a DAA system, in combination with risk ratios of other collision mitigation mechanisms, will determine the overall safety of the airspace measured in terms of the number of collisions per flight hour. It is not known what the effectiveness is of a pilot-in-the-loop DAA system or even what parameters of the DAA system most improve the pilots ability to maintain separation. The relationship between the DAA system design and the overall effectiveness of the DAA system that includes the pilot, expressed as a risk ratio, must be determined before DAA operational and performance requirements can be finalized. Much research has been devoted to integrating UAS into non-segregated airspace (Dalamagkidis, 2009, Ostwald, 2007, Gillian, 2012, Hesselink, 2011, Santiago, 2015, Rorie 2015 and 2016). Several traffic displays intended for use as part of a DAA system have gone through human-in-the-loop simulation and flight-testing. Most of these evaluations were part of development programs to produce a deployable system, so it is unclear how to generalize particular aspects of those designs to general requirements for future traffic displays (Calhoun, 2014). Other displays have undergone testing to collect data that may generalize to new displays, but have not been evaluated in the context of the development of an overall safety case for UAS equipped with DAA systems in the NAS (Bell, 2012). Other research efforts focus on DAA surveillance performance and separation standards. Together with this work, they are expected to facilitate validation of the airspace safety case (Park, 2014 and Johnson, 2015). The contribution of the present work is to quantify the effectiveness of the pilot-automation system to remain well clear as a function of display features and surveillance sensor error. This quantification will help enable selection of a minimum set of DAA design features that meets the AST, a set that may not be unique for all UAS platforms. A second objective is to collect and analyze pilot performance parameters that will improve the modeling of overall DAA system performance in non-human-in-the-loop simulations. Simulating the DAA-equipped UAS in such batch experiments will allow investigation of a much larger number of encounters than is possible in human simulations. This capability is necessary to demonstrate that a particular set of DAA requirements meets the AST under all foreseeable operational conditions.

detect and avoid↗

NASA NTRS2020

Control Force Compensation in Ground-Based Flight Simulators

This paper presents the results of a study that investigated if controller force compensations accounting for the inertial force and moment due to the aircraft motion during flight have a significant effect on pilot control behavior and performance. Seven rotorcraft pilots performed a side-step and precision hovering task in light turbulence in the Vertical Motion Simulator. The effects of force compensation were examined for two different simulated rotorcraft: linear and UH-60 dynamics with two different force gradient of the lateral stick control. Four motion configurations were used: large motion, hexapod motion, fixed-base motion, and fixed-base motion with compensation. Control-input variables and task performance such as the time to translate to the designated hover position, station-keeping position errors, and handling qualities ratings were used as measures. Control force compensation enabled pilot control behavior and performance more similar to that under high- or medium-fidelity motion to some extent only. Control force compensation did not improve overall task performance considering both rotorcraft models at the same time. The control force compensation had effects on the linear model with lighter force gradient, but only a minimal effect on pilots? control behavior and task performance for the UH-60 model, which had a higher force gradient. This suggests that the control force compensation has limited benefits for controllers that have higher stiffness.

Chung, William W.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Control Force Compensation in Ground-Based Flight Simulators

Chung, William↗

NASA NTRS1991

Contextual specificity in perception and action

The visually guided control of helicopter flight is a human achievement, and, thus, understanding this skill is, in part, a psychological problem. The abilities of skilled pilots are impressive, and yet it is of concern that pilots' performance is less than ideal: they suffer from workload constraints, make occasional errors, and are subject to such debilities as simulator sickness. Remedying such deficiencies is both an engineering and a psychological problem. When studying the psychological aspects of this problem, it is desirable to simplify the problem as much as possible, and thereby, sidestep as many intractable psychological issues as possible. Simply stated, we do not want to have to resolve such polemics as the mind-body problem in order to contribute to the design of more effective helicopter systems. On the other hand, the study of human behavior is a psychological endeavor and certain problems cannot be evaded. Four related issues that are of psychological significance in understanding the visually guided control of helicopter flight are discussed. First, a selected discussion of the nature of descriptive levels in analyzing human perception and performance is presented. It is argued that the appropriate level of description for perception is kinematical, and for performance, it is procedural. Second, it is argued that investigations into pilot performance cannot ignore the nature of pilots' phenomenal experience. The conscious control of actions is not based upon environmental states of affairs, nor upon the optical information that specifies them. Actions are coupled to perceptions. Third, the acquisition of skilled actions in the context of inherent misperceptions is discussed. Such skills may be error prone in some situations, but not in others. Finally, I discuss the contextual relativity of human errors. Each of these four issues relates to a common theme: the control of action is mediated by phenomenal experience, the veracity of which is context specific.

Proffitt, Dennis R.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Pilots of the future - Human or computer?

In connection with the occurrence of aircraft accidents and the evolution of the air-travel system, questions arise regarding the computer's potential for making fundamental contributions to improving the safety and reliability of air travel. An important result of an analysis of the causes of aircraft accidents is the conclusion that humans - 'pilots and other personnel' - are implicated in well over half of the accidents which occur. Over 70 percent of the incident reports contain evidence of human error. In addition, almost 75 percent show evidence of an 'information-transfer' problem. Thus, the question arises whether improvements in air safety could be achieved by removing humans from control situations. In an attempt to answer this question, it is important to take into account also certain advantages which humans have in comparison to computers. Attention is given to human error and the effects of technology, the motivation to automate, aircraft automation at the crossroads, the evolution of cockpit automation, and pilot factors.

Chambers, A. B.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Terminal Area Procedures for Paired Runways

Parallel runway operations have been found to increase capacity within the National Airspace but poor visibility conditions reduce the use of these operations. The NextGen and SESAR Programs have identified the capacity benefits from increased use of closely-space parallel runway. Previous research examined the concepts and procedures related to parallel runways however, there has been no investigation of the procedures associated with the strategic and tactical pairing of aircraft for these operations. This simulation study developed and examined the pilot and controller procedures and information requirements for creating aircraft pairs for parallel runway operations. The goal was to achieve aircraft pairing with a temporal separation of 15s (+/- 10s error) at a coupling point that was about 12 nmi from the runway threshold. Two variables were explored for the pilot participants: two levels of flight deck automation (current-day flight deck automation and auto speed control future automation) as well as two flight deck displays that assisted in pilot conformance monitoring. The controllers were also provided with automation to help create and maintain aircraft pairs. Results show the operations in this study were acceptable and safe. Subjective workload, when using the pairing procedures and tools, was generally low for both controllers and pilots, and situation awareness was typically moderate to high. Pilot workload was influenced by display type and automation condition. Further research on pairing and off-nominal conditions is required however, this investigation identified promising findings about the feasibility of closely-spaced parallel runway operations.

Lozito, Sandra↗

NASA NTRS2011

Terminal Area Procedures for Paired Runways

Parallel Runway operations have been found to increase capacity within the National Airspace (NAS) however, poor visibility conditions reduce this capacity [1]. Much research has been conducted to examine the concepts and procedures related to parallel runways however, there has been no investigation of the procedures associated with the strategic and tactical pairing of aircraft for these operations. This study developed and examined the pilot and controller procedures and information requirements for creating aircraft pairs for parallel runway operations. The goal was to achieve aircraft pairing with a temporal separation of 15s(+/- 10s error) at a coupling point that is about 12 nmi from the runway threshold. Two variables were explored for the pilot participants: Two levels of flight deck automation (current-day flight deck automation, and a prototype future automation) as well as two flight deck displays that assisted in pilot conformance monitoring. The controllers were also provided with automation to help create and maintain aircraft pairs. Data showed that the operations in this study were found to be acceptable and safe. Workload when using the pairing procedures and tools was generally low for both controllers and pilots, and situation awareness (SA) was typically moderate to high. There were some differences based upon the display and automation conditions for the pilots. Future research should consider the refinement of the concepts and tools for pilot and controller displays and automation for parallel runway concepts.

Lozito, Sandy↗

NASA NTRS1989

Piloted simulation of a ground-based time-control concept for air traffic control

A concept for aiding air traffic controllers in efficiently spacing traffic and meeting scheduled arrival times at a metering fix was developed and tested in a real time simulation. The automation aid, referred to as the ground based 4-D descent advisor (DA), is based on accurate models of aircraft performance and weather conditions. The DA generates suggested clearances, including both top-of-descent-point and speed-profile data, for one or more aircraft in order to achieve specific time or distance separation objectives. The DA algorithm is used by the air traffic controller to resolve conflicts and issue advisories to arrival aircraft. A joint simulation was conducted using a piloted simulator and an advanced concept air traffic control simulation to study the acceptability and accuracy of the DA automation aid from both the pilot's and the air traffic controller's perspectives. The results of the piloted simulation are examined. In the piloted simulation, airline crews executed controller issued descent advisories along standard curved path arrival routes, and were able to achieve an arrival time precision of + or - 20 sec at the metering fix. An analysis of errors generated in turns resulted in further enhancements of the algorithm to improve the predictive accuracy. Evaluations by pilots indicate general support for the concept and provide specific recommendations for improvement.

Davis, Thomas J.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Comparison of frequency-domain and time-domain rotorcraft vibration control methods

Active control of rotor-induced vibration in rotorcraft has received significant attention recently. Two classes of techniques have been proposed. The more developed approach works with harmonic analysis of measured time histories and is called the frequency-domain approach. The more recent approach computes the control input directly using the measured time history data and is called the time-domain approach. The report summarizes the results of a theoretical investigation to compare the two approaches. Five specific areas were addressed: (1) techniques to derive models needed for control design (system identification methods), (2) robustness with respect to errors, (3) transient response, (4) susceptibility to noise, and (5) implementation difficulties. The system identification methods are more difficult for the time-domain models. The time-domain approach is more robust (e.g., has higher gain and phase margins) than the frequency-domain approach. It might thus be possible to avoid doing real-time system identification in the time-domain approach by storing models at a number of flight conditions. The most significant error source is the variation in open-loop vibrations caused by pilot inputs, maneuvers or gusts. The implementation requirements are similar except that the time-domain approach can be much simpler to implement if real-time system identification were not necessary.

Gupta, N. K.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Pilot evaluation of experimental flight trajectories in the near-terminal area

Advanced cockpit avionics systems now under development at NASA Langley Research Center will provide the means for effectively utilizing MLS technology to achieve a number of important objectives in the near-terminal airspace. A simulator study has recently been completed at NASA Langley Research Center in which guest pilots from a number of airlines were asked to fly curved ground tracks designed to avoid population centers in four airport communities. Eight two-man crews comprised of commercial line pilots, and three NASA crews each evaluated a total of eight departures and eight approaches on the basis of such factors as workload, safety, passenger acceptance, controllability, and piloting skill. Various physical measurements were also made, including cross-track errors, altitude errors, bank angles, and fuel flow rates. Half of the trajectories were curved and designed to be population-minimal, and half were designed to represent conventional ground tracks. The objective of the study was to determine if statistically significant differences could be detected between curved and conventional ground tracks on the basis of these parameters.

Deloach, R.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Optimal input design for aircraft instrumentation systematic error estimation

A new technique for designing optimal flight test inputs for accurate estimation of instrumentation systematic errors was developed and demonstrated. A simulation model of the F-18 High Angle of Attack Research Vehicle (HARV) aircraft was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the optimal input compared to input recorded during flight test. Instrumentation systematic error parameter estimates and their standard errors were compared. It was found that the optimal input design improved error parameter estimates and their accuracies for a fixed time input design. Pilot acceptability of the optimal input design was demonstrated using a six degree-of-freedom fixed base piloted simulation of the F-18 HARV. The technique described in this work provides a practical, optimal procedure for designing inputs for data compatibility experiments.

Morelli, Eugene A.↗