National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Published: 2018-05-29
Total Pages: 50
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NASA's Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) project is developing technologies with practical applications to potentially eliminate low visibility conditions as a causal factor to civil aircraft accidents while replicating the operational benefits of clear day flight operations, regardless of the actual outside visibility condition. A major thrust of the SVS project involves the development/demonstration of affordable, certifiable display configurations that provide intuitive out-the-window terrain and obstacle information with advanced guidance for commercial and business aircraft. This experiment evaluated the influence of different pathway and guidance display concepts upon pilot situation awareness (SA), mental workload, and flight path tracking performance for Synthetic Vision display concepts using a Head-Up Display (HUD). Two pathway formats (dynamic and minimal tunnel presentations) were evaluated against a baseline condition (no tunnel) during simulated instrument meteorological conditions approaches to Reno-Tahoe International airport. Two guidance cues (tadpole, follow-me aircraft) were also evaluated to assess their influence. Results indicated that the presence of a tunnel on an SVS HUD had no effect on flight path performance but that it did have significant effects on pilot SA and mental workload. The dynamic tunnel concept with the follow-me aircraft guidance symbol produced the lowest workload and provided the highest SA among the tunnel concepts evaluated.Kramer, Lynda J. and Prinzel, Lawrence J., III and Arthur, Jarvis J., III and Bailey, Randall E.Langley Research CenterENHANCED VISION; HEAD-UP DISPLAYS; WIND TUNNELS; CIVIL AVIATION; LOW VISIBILITY; WORKLOADS (PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY); SITUATIONAL AWARENESS; SIMULATION; INDEPENDENT VARIABLES; DATA PROCESSING; EXPERIMENT DESIGN; BOEING 757 AIRCRAFT; FLIGHT PATHS; TERRAIN; FLIGHT OPERATIONS