Haiduk, Paul Manuel (2017)
Display Formats for Smart Glasses to Support Pilots in General Aviation.
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Dissertation, Erstveröffentlichung

Kurzbeschreibung (Abstract)

This dissertation develops and evaluates various display formats for smart glasses which could provide information to support pilots in general aviation on flights under visual flight rules. The aim of a new display format is the reduction of pilot task load and the increase of pilot situation awareness. Under visual flight rules, pilots apply rules known as see-and-avoid. However, the monitoring of airspace conflicts with information acquisition from head-down instrumentation. Conventional displays may drive the pilot’s attention head-down at the expense of monitoring the scene outside, which has the potential to lead to breakdowns in task management. One of the main reasons for accidents is human error (84% in GA), which is associated with an increased workload resulting in a loss of situation awareness. One way to prevent accidents is to reduce workload to an adequate level and to increase situation awareness; the projection of supporting information in the head-up area could be one to do so. A proposed solution is the use of smart glasses, which project the most important information directly into the field of view. This dissertation is the only research work in the field that scientifically investigates the feasibility and utility of display formats for smart glasses for use in the cockpit of general aviation. The EPSON Moverio BT-200 smart glasses are selected based on set requirements for integration within the research flight simulator Diamond DA 40-180 at the Institute of Flight Systems and Automatic Control. Four different display formats are implemented and tested with regard to subjective- workload and usability in a preliminary simulator study with N = 7 participants. The results of the preliminary investigation show that the developed Primary Flight Display format has the highest usability and is therefore selected for further development. The Primary Flight Display format is further developed with consideration of the user feedback from the preliminary study. A new flight guidance symbology for lateral guidance, called Lateral Guidance Line (LGL), is designed and added to the format. A magenta colored line in the center of the format supports the pilot in maintaining track. The lateral guidance symbology is designed to show when to initiate a turn and when the turn should be completed in order to minimize deviations from a desired track (e.g. traffic pattern). In the final evaluation, the LGL format is evaluated with N = 20 pilots. In addition to assessing the subjective- usability and workload, the lateral deviations from a given flight path are recorded.

Spatial awareness is operationalized through eye-tracking and a secondary reaction task using visual signals. Pilots fly twice, once with the LGL format on the smart glasses and once with conventional instruments without smart glasses at two different airfields in a balanced order. The effectiveness of the Lateral Guidance Line display format can be confirmed. The lateral deviations from the target trajectory are significantly lower in the group using the format compared to the group using conventional instruments (without smart glasses), while task load remained the same. An increase in eyes-out time as well as fewer missed signals on the secondary task proves the potential of the display format to increase spatial awareness compared to conventional instruments. The subjective suitability of the Lateral Guidance Line format was rated 73 (on a scale of 0 to 100) which corresponds to a good subjective usability and is not significantly different from the evaluations of the previously implemented prototypes. Overall, the results of the investigation show that smart glasses have the potential to support pilots in general aviation and to potentially reduce accident rates. Only few hardware challenges remain in the development of this format. The work draws on recommendations from the feedback of various general aviation interest groups and points out future research questions.

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