Pilot Performance and Eye Movement Activity with Varying Levels of Display Integration in a Synthetic Vision Cockpit

The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the effects of display integration in a simulated commercial aircraft cockpit equipped with a synthetic vision display. Combinations of display integration level (low/high), display view (synthetic vision view/traditional display), and workload (low/high) were presented to each participant. Sixteen commercial pilots flew multiple approaches under IMC conditions in a moderate fidelity fixed-base part-task simulator. Pilot performance data, visual activity, mental workload, and self-report situation awareness were measured. Congruent with the Proximity Compatibility Principle, the more integrated display facilitated superior performance on integrative tasks (lateral and vertical path maintenance), whereas a less integrated display elicited better focus task performance (airspeed maintenance). The synthetic vision displays facilitated superior path maintenance performance under low workload, but these performance gains were not as evident during high workload. The majority of the eye movement findings identified differences in visual acquisition of the airspeed indicator, the glideslope indicator, the localizer, and the altimeter as a function of display integration level or display view. There were more fixations on the airspeed indicator with the more integrated display layout and during high workload trials. There were also more fixations on the glideslope indicator with the more integrated display layout. However, there were more fixations on the localizer with the less integrated display layout. There were more fixations on the altimeter with the more integrated display and with the traditional view. Only a few eye movement differences were produced by the synthetic vision displays; pilots looked at the glideslope indicator and the altimeter less with the synthetic vision view. This supports the notion that utilizing a synthetic vision display should not adversely impact visual acquisition of data. Self-report mental workload and situation awareness data highlight additional benefits of display integration and synthetic vision displays. Design and retrofit implications are discussed and future research is suggested to further examine these issues

Human Factors Evaluation of Conflict Resolution Advisories in the En Route Domain

Objective: In this human-in-the-loop simulation experiment, we evaluated how Conflict Resolution Advisories (CRA) affected en route controllers. Background: Controllers currently use a conflict probe and trial planning tool, known as the User Request Evaluation Tool (URET), which is available on the Radar Associate Position. However, under Trajectory-Based Operations\u2014that is, Separation Management Modern Procedures (SepMan)\u2014several capabilities will become available to the Radar Position, including probed menus, conflict detection and trial planning, and support for multiple separation minima within a sector\u2018s airspace. The CRA Program is built upon the SepMan concept and will provide a proposed solution to a potential conflict as soon as a controller initiates the entry of a clearance. Method: Twelve current en route Certified Professional Controllers from Air Route Traffic Control Centers participated in the experiment. Results: CRA capabilities did not change controller workload nor time and distance flown by aircraft in the sector. Analysis of tactical and strategic conflict alerts show that controllers solved potential conflicts quickly when CRA was available. Most of the participants\u2018 subjective ratings favored the CRA, and participants expressed that CRA was a useful concept. Conclusion: The results show an advantage of CRA on some air traffic control tasks. In general, CRA was accepted by the participant controllers. Application: With a few modifications of the current CRA features and functions, the authors believe that CRA will be a useful automation tool for air traffic controllers

Forecaster Warning Decision Making with Rapidly-Updating Radar Data

Phased-array radar is being considered as a potential future replacement technology for the current operational Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler system. One of the most notable differences in these weather radar systems is the temporal resolution. With phased-array radar collecting volumetric updates 4–6 times more frequently, the operational impacts of rapidly-updating radar data on forecasters’ warning decision processes must be assessed. The Phased Array Radar Innovative Sensing Experiment (PARISE) was therefore designed to examine forecasters’ warning performance and related warning decision processes during use of ~1-min radar updates in simulated real-time warning operation scenarios. While the 2010, 2012, and 2013 PARISE studies reported encouraging findings for forecasters’ use of these data, each of these studies were limited in terms of sample size and the chosen methods. Additionally, important research questions that had not yet been explored remained unanswered. To address these limitations and investigate new research questions, thirty National Weather Service forecasters were invited to the NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed to participate in the 2015 PARISE. Participating forecasters completed three components of this study: 1) the traditional experiment, 2) an eye-tracking experiment, and 3) a focus group. The first component was designed to build on previous work by assessing and comparing forecasters’ warning performance and related cognitive workload when using 1-min, 2-min, and 5-min phased-array radar updates during simulated warning operations. This traditional experiment was comprised of nine weather events that varied in terms of weather threat. Next, forecasters’ eye movement data were observed as they each worked a single weather event with either 1-min or 5-min phased-array radar updates. This work was motivated by an eye-tracking pilot study, in which a forecaster’s eye movement data was found to correspond meaningfully to their retrospective recall data that described their warning decision process. The 2015 PARISE eye-tracking experiment allowed for an objective analysis of how forecasters interacted with a radar display and warning interface for a single weather event, and more specifically, supported an investigation of whether radar update speed impacts how forecasters distribute their attention. Lastly, six focus groups were conducted to enable forecasters to share their experiences on their use of rapidly-updating phased-array radar data during the experiment. The findings from the focus groups provide motivation for the integration of rapidly-updating radar data into the forecast office and highlight some important considerations for successful use of these data during warning operations. The work presented in this dissertation was approved by the University of Oklahoma’s Office of Human Research Participant Protection Institutional Review Board under projects #5226 and #5580

Mind wandering dynamic in automated environments and its influence on out-of-the-loop situations

Des niveaux d'automatisation élevés sont intégrés dans les environnements critiques pour satisfaire la demande croissante de systèmes plus sûrs. Cette philosophie déplace les opérateurs vers un rôle de supervision et crée de nouveaux problèmes appelés problèmes de performance liés à la sortie de boucle (SDB). L'émergence de pensées sans lien avec ici et maintenant, ou divagation attentionnelle (DA), pourrait affecter les opérateurs dans des situations de SDB par le biais du découplage perceptuel induit. Cette thèse a étudié la dynamique de la DA dans les situations de SDB et son influence sur les opérateurs. Nous avons en premier lieu examiné les preuves dans la littérature pointant vers un lien entre le problème de performance lié à la SDB et la DA. Nous avons complété cette analyse théorique en rapportant la tendance des pilotes (collectée avec un questionnaire) à rencontrer plus de problèmes avec leur pilote automatique pour ceux ayant une plus grande propension au MW non lié à la tâche. Nous avons ensuite mené trois expériences dans des conditions de SDB. Nous avons observé une augmentation significative des épisodes de DA dans les situations de SDB quelle que soit la fiabilité du système, par rapport aux conditions manuelles. Les épisodes de DA étaient également accompagnés d'un découplage perceptuel vis-à-vis de la tâche créé par la DA non lié à la tâche. Ce découplage était visible sur des rapports de demande mentale ainsi que les signaux oculométriques et encéphalographiques. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats démontrent la possibilité d'utiliser des marqueurs physiologiques de la DA dans des environnements de SDB complexes. Nous discutons de nouvelles perspectives d'utilisation des marqueurs de la DA pour caractériser les problèmes de performance liés à la SDB. Sans vouloir arrêter aveuglément l'émergence de la DA, qui pourrait être bénéfique pour les opérateurs, les recherches futures devraient se concentrer sur la conception de systèmes capables de gérer la DA et d'identifier les informations nécessaires pour faciliter la rentrée de l'opérateur dans la boucle de contrôle.Higher levels of automation are progressively integrated in critical environments to satisfy the increasing demand for safer systems. Such philosophy moves operators to a supervisory role, also called out-of-the-loop (OOTL) situations. Unfortunately, OOTL situations also create a new kind of human-machine interaction issues, called OOTL performance problem. The dramatic consequences of OOTL performance problem stress the need to identify which mechanisms could influence their appearance. The emergence of thoughts unrelated to the here and now, labeled mind wandering (MW), could affect operators in OOTL situations through the perceptual decoupling induced. This thesis investigates MW dynamic in OOTL situations and its influence on operators. We firstly reviewed the evidences in the literature underlining a link between OOTL performance problem and MW. We completed theoretical insights by reporting pilots' tendency (collected with a questionnaire) to encounter more problems with autopilots when experiencing more task-unrelated MW. Then, we conducted three experiments in OOTL conditions using an obstacle avoidance task. With non-expert population and sessions longer than 45 minutes, we observed a significant increase of MW in OOTL situations compared to manual conditions, independently of system reliability. MW episodes were also accompanied by a perceptual decoupling from the task induced by task-unrelated MW. This decoupling was visible on reports of mental demand as well as oculometric (pupil size, blinks) and encephalographic (N1 component, alpha activity) signals. Overall, our results demonstrate the possibility to use physiological markers of MW in complex OOTL environments. We discuss new perspectives towards the use of MW markers to characterize the OOTL performance problem. Instead of blindly stopping MW episodes, which could have benefits for operators, future research should focus on designing systems able to cope with MW and identify information needed to facilitate the reentry in the control loop when needed

Research and technology, 1992

Selected research and technology activities at Ames Research Center, including the Moffett Field site and the Dryden Flight Research Facility, are summarized. These activities exemplify the Center's varied and productive research efforts for 1992

3D multiple description coding for error resilience over wireless networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Mobile communications has gained a growing interest from both customers and service providers alike in the last 1-2 decades. Visual information is used in many application domains such as remote health care, video –on demand, broadcasting, video surveillance etc. In order to enhance the visual effects of digital video content, the depth perception needs to be provided with the actual visual content. 3D video has earned a significant interest from the research community in recent years, due to the tremendous impact it leaves on viewers and its enhancement of the user’s quality of experience (QoE). In the near future, 3D video is likely to be used in most video applications, as it offers a greater sense of immersion and perceptual experience. When 3D video is compressed and transmitted over error prone channels, the associated packet loss leads to visual quality degradation. When a picture is lost or corrupted so severely that the concealment result is not acceptable, the receiver typically pauses video playback and waits for the next INTRA picture to resume decoding. Error propagation caused by employing predictive coding may degrade the video quality severely. There are several ways used to mitigate the effects of such transmission errors. One widely used technique in International Video Coding Standards is error resilience. The motivation behind this research work is that, existing schemes for 2D colour video compression such as MPEG, JPEG and H.263 cannot be applied to 3D video content. 3D video signals contain depth as well as colour information and are bandwidth demanding, as they require the transmission of multiple high-bandwidth 3D video streams. On the other hand, the capacity of wireless channels is limited and wireless links are prone to various types of errors caused by noise, interference, fading, handoff, error burst and network congestion. Given the maximum bit rate budget to represent the 3D scene, optimal bit-rate allocation between texture and depth information rendering distortion/losses should be minimised. To mitigate the effect of these errors on the perceptual 3D video quality, error resilience video coding needs to be investigated further to offer better quality of experience (QoE) to end users. This research work aims at enhancing the error resilience capability of compressed 3D video, when transmitted over mobile channels, using Multiple Description Coding (MDC) in order to improve better user’s quality of experience (QoE). Furthermore, this thesis examines the sensitivity of the human visual system (HVS) when employed to view 3D video scenes. The approach used in this study is to use subjective testing in order to rate people’s perception of 3D video under error free and error prone conditions through the use of a carefully designed bespoke questionnaire.Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF

Eleventh Annual Conference on Manual Control

Human operator performance and servomechanism analyses for manual vehicle control tasks are studied

Advances in Robotics, Automation and Control

The book presents an excellent overview of the recent developments in the different areas of Robotics, Automation and Control. Through its 24 chapters, this book presents topics related to control and robot design; it also introduces new mathematical tools and techniques devoted to improve the system modeling and control. An important point is the use of rational agents and heuristic techniques to cope with the computational complexity required for controlling complex systems. Through this book, we also find navigation and vision algorithms, automatic handwritten comprehension and speech recognition systems that will be included in the next generation of productive systems developed by man

Expertise in map comprehension: processing of geographic features according to spatial configuration and abstract roles

Expertise in topographic map reading is dependent on efficient processing of geographical information presented in a standardised map format. Studies have supported the proposition that expert map readers employ cognitive schemas in which prototypical configurations held in long term memory are employed during the surface search of map features to facilitate map comprehension. Within the experts’ cognitive schemas, it is assumed that features are grouped according to spatial configurations that have been frequently encountered and these patterns facilitate efficient chunking of features during information processing. This thesis investigates the nature of information held in experts’ cognitive schemas. It also proposes that features are grouped in the experts’ schemas not only by their spatial configurations but according to the abstract and functional roles they perform. Three experiments investigated the information processing strategies employed by firstly, skilled map readers engaged in a map reproduction task and secondly, expert map readers engaged in a location comparison exercise. In the first and second experiments, skilled and novice map readers studied and reproduced a town map and a topographic map. Drawing protocols and verbal protocols provided insights into their information processing strategies. The skilled map readers demonstrated superior performance for reproducing contour related data with evidence of the use of cognitive schemas. For the third experiment, expert and novice map readers compared locations within map excerpts for similarities of boundary extents. Eye-gaze data and verbal protocols provided information on the features attended to and the participants’ search patterns. The expert group integrated features into their cognitive schemas according to the abstract roles they performed significantly more frequently than the novices. Both groups employed pattern recognition to integrate features for some of the locations. Within a similar experimental design the second part of the third experiment examined whether experts also integrated the abstract roles of remote features and village grouping concepts within their cognitive schemas. The experts again integrated the abstract roles of physical features into their schemas more often than novices but this strategy was not employed for either the remote feature or grouping categories. Implications for map design and future Geographic Information Systems are discussed

Social work with airports passengers

Social work at the airport is in to offer to passengers social services. The main methodological position is that people are under stress, which characterized by a particular set of characteristics in appearance and behavior. In such circumstances passenger attracts in his actions some attention. Only person whom he trusts can help him with the documents or psychologically