A Multimodal Approach to Design of Aircraft Cockpit Displays (original) (raw)
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Functional Interface Design for the Modern Aircraft Cockpit
The International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 1999
There is an emerging concern that modem glass cockpits induce information overload. This is sometimes thought to be an inevitable result of the increased complexity and the need for automation that accompanies the transition to high technology. We argue here that the human performance problems created by glass cockpits are not an inevitable consequence of increased hardware complexity or of automation but, instead, are a result of nonfunctional design that increases complexity at the cockpit interface. The essential danger with computerized interfaces is that many physical design constraints are removed and designers are permitted unheralded opportunities for new information and control formats. Low technology forces the use of functional properties at the interface, but computer technology does not. On the other hand, computer technology does not preclude functional design. Computer technology may offer far broader opportunities for functional design by releasing designers from many physical constraints. In this article, we explain the concept of functional interface design and outline how it might enable the use of high technology and automation in the service of robust and cognitively economical action in an aircraft cockpit. Remarkable developments in computer hardware have encouraged equally remarkable developments in design of the modem commercial cockpit. The use of computers eliminates many of the physical constraints that once shackled interface design. There are possibilities for more extensive automation and for new display and control formats. Although there are many advantages of cockpit computerization, the increased levels of automation and the change in amount and format of information provided to the pilot have been implicated in a series of accidents and incidents. More generally, modern glass cockpits induce special types of pilot errors Requests for reprints should be sent to Gavan Lintern, Air Operations Division, Defense Science
Cockpit display design to fight threats to safety in aerospace
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.
A Tool for Easing the Cognitive Analysis of Design Prototypes of Aircraft Cockpit Instruments
2015
Development and evaluation of dynamic and complex systems require new techniques and tools to evaluate the risks of Human and Systems Error, especially for safety critical systems. Established techniques like the cognitive workload analysis that can be used to assess the individual perceived operator workload for sets of tasks these are not widely used in industrial development. That is, because cognitive analysis of dynamic systems depends on complex architectures and simulations to evaluate workload over time, and is still driven by proprietary notations for cognitive models that require in-depth cognitive modeling skills and is currently only accessible to experts. In this paper we present an extension to CogTool, the Human Efficiency Evaluator (HEE) to ease the analysis of the impact of new instruments and new display designs with respect to human operator workload and task execution times. The tool is designed to make these cognitive analysis techniques available to non-experts, such as system analysts and engineers. We explain the cognitive modeling and analysis process supported by the HEE referring to an aeronautics scenario presented earlier by Hutchins. The cognitive analysis compares the task performance and workload of three generations of cockpit instrument designs to support pilots' with the slats/flaps settings during an aircraft approach with the current support in modern aircrafts and was performed by using the HEE.
Usability Evaluation of the Cockpit Display System
Design, User Experience, and Usability: Novel User Experiences, 2016
The cockpit display system is the most important source for the pilot to obtain information, so its usability has a great significance. However, the relevant research is very rare and inappropriate for the moment. Therefore, in order to improve the cockpit display system, this paper proposes five evaluation factors and a series of evaluation indicators, and build a set of evaluation method. Firstly, this paper adopt Analytic Hierarchy Process to confirm the weight of each factor and its indicators. Secondly, this paper adopt expert scoring method to obtain all indicators' usability score. Finally, this paper integrates the usability score and corresponding weight of every indicator to give a overall usability score of the cockpit display system. Besides, using the above method, we invite five graduate students to make a cockpit simulator display system's usability evaluation, the evaluation result is between good and very good, demonstrating that the method of this paper indeed can make a quantitative evaluation for the usability of cockpit display system. Fortunately, this will be the first time in the history of the whole cockpit display system's usability evaluation, undoubtedly, it will also accelerate the development of the whole cockpit display system's usability rapidly. Similarly, we can also generalize this method to the whole cockpit or even the whole aircraft's usability evaluation.
An Approach for Assessing the Usability of Cockpit Display System
Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics: Cognition and Design, 2017
Since the interaction between pilot and cockpit becoming more complicated and frequent, the usability of cockpit man-machine interface is directly related to the efficiency and safety of the cockpit. Among many human-computer interaction interfaces, the usability of the display system has become an important factor affecting flight efficiency and safety. However, the current study seldom pay sufficient attention on the usability evaluation. The limited research cannot report believable results to construct design. The paper is aimed to propose an evaluation model to evaluate the usability of displays. To construct a quantitative model the first step is to establish a usability evaluation model composed of nine evaluation indicators. In this paper, factor analysis method is used to remove the overlapping factors. First of all, the raw data from the usability test was normalized to form a correlation matrix. Then the cumulative contribution rate of each factors is obtained from the eigenvalues of the matrix. And factors whose eigenvalues are greater than 1 are chosen as the primary index of the model. And then the paper establishes the factor load matrix, and the rotation load matrix is obtained by rotating it orthogonally. Removing the factors whose load less than 0.5, the rest of factors are chosen as the secondary index of the model. The multiple linear regression method is used to obtain the weight coefficient of every indicator in the usability evaluation model. The solution of equations is the weight coefficient matrix of each index. Score of the whole display system is figured out by weighting the score of each indicator. The evaluation result is the function of indicators of different displays built. Through the calculation and analysis of indictors, the usability of different systems can be acquired. Finally, the paper interchanges independent variables and the dependent variables, using linear regression analysis again. The validation and verification of the usability model had been executed by the questionnaires of flight simulation task based on typical flight scenes according to the A320 flight manual. The evaluation model of usability is helpful to the design of the new display system and the improvement of current system. And the evaluation model proposed in this paper can also be extended to evaluate the usability of other airborne systems and it will drive the development of civil aircraft cockpit usability.
We explore the design space for interactive instruments in the cockpit of the future. Touch technologies are going to replace current electronic displays for flying and navigating instruments. For safety and performance reasons, interactive instruments should however maximize the perception, action and collaboration spaces of the pilots, and the literature highlights the limits of touch interaction as for these aspects. Our objective is thus to explore how the physicality of interactive technologies could address this issue. Based on a set of elicited requirements for interactive instruments in the cockpit, we explore the literature on tactile, haptic, tangible, gesture-based, organic and smart materialbased interaction along a multi-dimensional design space, based on shape, perception and programmability.
Designing User-Interfaces for the Cockpit: Five Common Design Errors and How to Avoid Them
2002
The efficiency and robustness of pilot-automation interaction is a function of the volume of memorized action sequences required to use the automation to perform mission tasks. This paper describes a model of pilot cognition for the evaluation of the cognitive usability of cockpit automation. Five common cockpit automation design errors are discussed with examples.
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.
Contrastive Analysis of Distractions to Pilot Caused by Various Flight Instrument Displays
Journal of Transportation Technologies, 2022
Automation of aircraft instrument displays enhances flight safety, but it also increases complexity and pilot workload. Executing changes in flight plan, navigation or communication during flight using flight instrument switches often increases pilots' workload and this may also cause distraction that adds potential risks to flight safety. This study compares the conventional avionics panel and touchscreen avionic panel to find out the least distractive panel for the pilots. Thirty simulated flights using four different pilots were carried out; and aircraft speed, altitude and heading parameters using both avionics systems were observed to study the operational efficiency and pilot distraction resulted from each of the avionic systems. The distraction was examined by a parameter analysis based on the Mean Squared Error (MSE) mathematical model and visually by recording videos of each simulated flight. The results indicate that the touchscreen system is more efficient and less erroneous for the aircraft in maintaining the parameters as compared with the conventional system. There is also a clear relationship between task completion time and disruption level on the parameters control.
Distributed representation as a principle for the analysis of cockpit information displays
1997
This article examines the representational properties of cockpit information displays from the perspective of distributed representations (Zhang & Norman, 1994). The basic idea is that the information needed for many tasks in a cockpit is distributed across the external information displays in the cockpit and the internal minds of the pilots. It is proposed that the relative distribution of internal and external information is the major factor of a display's representational efficiency.