Functional Interface Design for the Modern Aircraft Cockpit

1997

Spatial Disorientation (SD) and Loss of Situational Awareness (LSA) are serious threats to aerospace safety. These related concepts are caused by problems with attention and workload. The major contribution to the protection against LSA and SD must come from improved cockpit design. A good cognitive coupling between machine and human must be established to defy the problem. This paper presents a brief view on human cognitive performance and discusses the visual and the auditory modalities. Multi-modal cockpit interfaces seem to be the best tool to attain the goal of enhancing safety in aerospace by keeping the pilots well informed.

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

There has been steady and significant growth and development of the technology available to pilots on the modern aviation flight deck. From improved information systems such as the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), to increased control of the aircraft (e.g., automated collision avoidance maneuvering) and onwards to overall management of flights (via the Flight Management System, FMS), pilots now have a range of high-tech systems at their fingertips. This technology is designed to support pilots in maintaining situation awareness, making complex decisions, communicating effectively and assisting in flying the aircraft. However, each technological advancement comes with human computer interaction (HCI) considerations that warrant exploration. This special issue aims to bring together new knowledge and best practices, from the scientific community and industry, related to HCI issues on the modern flight deck. The goal of the special issue is to shed light on areas in need of improvement and potential new solutions for maintaining effective HCI on the flight deck. The articles within this special issue incorporate quantitative and qualitative research methods along with HCI design techniques to examine current and future use of technology on the flight deck and how it impacts pilot performance. Although this issue represents a small portion of the challenges pilots face when interacting with technology on the modern flight deck, it will hopefully serve as a lens to focus attention on the many HCI issues that pilots face, the progress that has been made to date, and the many areas that show potential for improvement.

2000

The Multi-function Control and Display Unit (MCDU), introduced to the commercial aircraft flightdeck in the 1970's, has been identified as a source of the issues pilots have transitioning to glass cockpits. Several aircraft manufacturers and avionics vendors have committed to replace the MCDU with graphical user-interfaces in the next generation of commercial aircraft. A cognitive task analysis of pilot-MCDU interaction

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2009

According to general aviation manufacturers, all aircraft rolling off the assembly line are or will be equipped with next-generation electronic flight instrument cockpits, called 'glass' cockpits. Because most pilots were trained with older analog displays, it becomes imperative to find out what human factors issues the pilots will encounter when they transition to glass displays. A comparative study was carried out in a general aviation aircraft simulator between instrumentation of the type used in conventional and glass cockpits for recovery from unusual attitudes. Glass displays showed longer recovery time than round-dial displays. Low-time pilots judged analog displays as more usable than glass displays. Suggestions are made to design a hybrid display of round dial and vertical tapes as well as examine unusual attitude training methods more closely.

Mode confusion is increasingly becoming a significant contributor to accidents and incidents involving highly automated airliners; in the last seven years there have been four airline accidents in which mode problems were present. This paper provides some initial observations about modes and how pilots use them. The authors define the terms "mode," "mode transitions," "mode configurations," and propose a framework for describing and classifying modes. Preliminary results from a field study that documented mode usage in "Glass Cockpit" aircraft are presented. The data were collected during 30 flights onboard Boeing 757/767-type aircraft. Summary of the data depicts the various paths pilots use in transitioning from one mode to another. Analysis of the data suggest that these mode transitions are influenced by changes in aircraft altitude as well as by two factors in the operational environment: the type of air traffic control facility supervising the flight, and the type of instruction (clearance) issued.

2014 IEEE/AIAA 33rd Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2014

In a class of accidents, known as Controlled Flight into Stall (CFIS), a structurally, mechanically, and electronically sound aircraft decelerated through the minimum safe operating speed (1.3 V Stall ) to the stick-shaker stall speed. These accidents followed a pattern in which a triggering event (e.g., sensor failure, flight crew entry) resulted in an automation mode change, which led to an inappropriate flight control command, which in turn resulted in a trajectory that violated the speed envelope. In all of these cases, the flight crew, who are required to "mind the gap" between the 10 -5 automation design standard and the 10 -9 operational hazard reliability standard, were not able to intervene in a timely manner. To address this phenomenon, researchers have proposed "low speed alerting" solutions, but this alerting takes place after the speed deviation has occurred. What would it take to detect the speed violation scenario before it occurs?

2000

A suite of cockpit navigation displays for low-visibility airport surface operations has been designed by researchers at NASA Ames Research Center following a human-centered process. This paper reports on the final research effort in this process that examined the procedural integration of these technologies into the flight deck. Using NASA Ames' high-fidelity Advanced Concepts Flight Simulator, eighteen airline crews completed fourteen low-visibility (RVR 1000') land-andtaxi scenarios that included both nominal (i.e., hold short of intersections, route amendments) and off-nominal taxi scenarios designed to assess how pilots integrate these technologies into their procedures and operations. Recommendations for integrating datalink and cockpit displays into current and future surface operations are provided.

Proceedings of the …, 1992

Increasing use of automation in computer systems, such as advanced cockpits, presents special challenges in the design of user interfaces.

2001

Recent air tra$c control regulations mandate the installation of computer-based #ight management systems in airliners across Europe. Integrating and certifying add-on cockpit systems is a long and costly process, which in its current form cannot meaningfully address ergonomics aspects. Two levels of problems occur: add-on systems carry many`classica HCI failures, which could easily be addressed with modi"ed certi"cation requirements. Further, adding new technology changes practice, creates new skill and knowledge demands and produces new forms of error, which are more di$cult to assess in advance. However, one innovative certi"cation approach for add-on cockpit systems, based on the use of a representative population of user pilots, was found to be promising. This method minimizes the subjective bias of individual pilots in addition to de"ning pass/fail criteria in an operational environment.

2011