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At least 703 records · Page 39
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1993

The ESIS query environment pilot project

The European Space Information System (ESIS) was originally conceived to provide the European space science community with simple and efficient access to space data archives, facilities with which to examine and analyze the retrieved data, and general information services. To achieve that ESIS will provide the scientists with a discipline specific environment for querying in a uniform and transparent manner data stored in geographically dispersed archives. Furthermore it will provide discipline specific tools for displaying and analyzing the retrieved data. The central concept of ESIS is to achieve a more efficient and wider usage of space scientific data, while maintaining the physical archives at the institutions which created them, and has the best background for ensuring and maintaining the scientific validity and interest of the data. In addition to coping with the physical distribution of data, ESIS is to manage also the heterogenity of the individual archives' data models, formats and data base management systems. Thus the ESIS system shall appear to the user as a single database, while it does in fact consist of a collection of dispersed and locally managed databases and data archives. The work reported in this paper is one of the results of the ESIS Pilot Project which is to be completed in 1993. More specifically it presents the pilot ESIS Query Environment (ESIS QE) system which forms the data retrieval and data dissemination axis of the ESIS system. The others are formed by the ESIS Correlation Environment (ESIS CE) and the ESIS Information Services. The ESIS QE Pilot Project is carried out for the European Space Agency's Research and Information center, ESRIN, by a Consortium consisting of Computer Resources International, Denmark, CISET S.p.a, Italy, the University of Strasbourg, France and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in the U.K. Furthermore numerous scientists both within ESA and space science community in Europe have been involved in defining the core concepts of the ESIS system.

Fuchs, Jens J.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Effects of historical and predictive information on ability of transport pilot to predict an alert

In the aviation community, the early detection of the development of a possible subsystem problem during a flight is potentially useful for increasing the safety of the flight. Commercial airlines are currently using twin-engine aircraft for extended transport operations over water, and the early detection of a possible problem might increase the flight crew's options for safely landing the aircraft. One method for decreasing the severity of a developing problem is to predict the behavior of the problem so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken. To investigate the pilots' ability to predict long-term events, a computer workstation experiment was conducted in which 18 airline pilots predicted the alert time (the time to an alert) using 3 different dial displays and 3 different parameter behavior complexity levels. The three dial displays were as follows: standard (resembling current aircraft round dial presentations); history (indicating the current value plus the value of the parameter 5 sec in the past); and predictive (indicating the current value plus the value of the parameter 5 sec into the future). The time profiles describing the behavior of the parameter consisted of constant rate-of-change profiles, decelerating profiles, and accelerating-then-decelerating profiles. Although the pilots indicated that they preferred the near term predictive dial, the objective data did not support its use. The objective data did show that the time profiles had the most significant effect on performance in estimating the time to an alert.

Trujillo, Anna C.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Piloted simulation study of two tilt-wing control concepts

A two-phase piloted simulation study was conducted to investigate alternative wing and flap controls for tilt-wing aircraft. The initial phase of the study compared the flying qualities of both a conventional (programmed) flap and an innovative geared flap. The second phase of the study introduced an alternate method of pilot control for the geared flap and further studied the flying qualities of the programmed flap, and two geared flap configurations. In general, the pilot rating showed little variation between the programmed flap and the geared flap control concepts. Some differences between the two concepts were noticed and are discussed in this paper. The addition of pitch attitude stabilization in the second phase of the study greatly enhanced the aircraft flying qualities. This paper describes the simulated tilt-wing aircraft and the flap control concepts and presents the results of both phases of the simulation study.

Birckelbaw, Lourdes G.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Experimental studies on the effect of automation on pilot situational awareness in the datalink ATC environment

An experiment to study how automation, when used in conjunction with datalink for the delivery of ATC clearance amendments, affects the situational awareness of aircrews was conducted. The study was focused on the relationship of situational awareness to automated Flight Management System (FMS) programming of datalinked clearances and the readback of ATC clearances. Situational awareness was tested by issuing nominally unacceptable ATC clearances and measuring whether the error was detected by the subject pilots. The experiment also varied the mode of clearance delivery: Verbal, Textual, and Graphical. The error detection performance and pilot preference results indicate that the automated programming of the FMS may be superior to manual programming. It is believed that automated FMS programming may relieve some of the cognitive load, allowing pilots to concentrate on the strategic implications of a clearance amendment. Also, readback appears to have value, but the small sample size precludes a definite conclusion. Furthermore, because textual and graphical modes of delivery offer different but complementary advantages for cognitive processing, a combination of these modes of delivery may be advantageous in a datalink presentation.

Hahn, Edward C.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Operator modeling in commerical aviation: Cognitive models, intelligent displays, and pilot's assistants

One of the goals of the National Aviation Safety/Automation program is to address the issue of human-centered automation in the cockpit. Human-centered automation is automation that, in the cockpit, enhances or assists the crew rather than replacing them. The Georgia Tech research program focused on this general theme, with emphasis on designing a computer-based pilot's assistant, intelligent (i.e, context-sensitive) displays, and an intelligent tutoring system for understanding and operating the autoflight system. In particular, the aids and displays were designed to enhance the crew's situational awareness of the current state of the automated flight systems and to assist the crew's situational awareness of the current state of the automated flight systems and to assist the crew in coordinating the autoflight system resources. The activities of this grant included: (1) an OFMspert to understand pilot navigation activities in a 727 class aircraft; (2) an extension of OFMspert to understand mode control in a glass cockpit, Georgia Tech Crew Activity Tracking System (GT-CATS); (3) the design of a training system to teach pilots about the vertical navigation portion of the flight management system -VNAV Tutor; and (4) a proof-of-concept display, using existing display technology, to facilitate mode awareness, particularly in situations in which controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) is a potential.

Govindaraj, T.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Pilot opinions on high level flight deck automation issues: Toward the development of a design philosophy

There has been much concern in recent years about the rapid increase in automation on commercial flight decks. The survey was composed of three major sections. The first section asked pilots to rate different automation components that exist on the latest commercial aircraft regarding their obtrusiveness and the attention and effort required in using them. The second section addressed general 'automation philosophy' issues. The third section focused on issues related to levels and amount of automation. The results indicate that pilots of advanced aircraft like their automation, use it, and would welcome more automation. However, they also believe that automation has many disadvantages, especially fully autonomous automation. They want their automation to be simple and reliable and to produce predictable results. The biggest needs for higher levels of automation were in pre-flight, communication, systems management, and task management functions, planning as well as response tasks, and high workload situations. There is an irony and a challenge in the implications of these findings. On the one hand pilots would like new automation to be simple and reliable, but they need it to support the most complex part of the job--managing and planning tasks in high workload situations.

Tenney, Yvette J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Preliminary analysis of pilot ratings of 'part line' information importance

With the introduction of digital datalink communications into the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, there is concern over the potential loss of situational awareness by flight crews due to the reduction in the 'Party Line Information' (PLI). This information is available to the pilot by overhearing communications between ATC and other aircraft. A survey was distributed to determine current PLI use by several pilot operational groups, experience levels and geographic regions. The survey identified numerous important elements. PLI was rated the highest for operations near or on approach to the airport. Several significant variations were found between pilots from different operational groups and experience levels. Traffic and weather information were the most frequently cited as information required to obtain global situation awareness.

Pritchett, Amy↗
NASA NTRS1994

Enhancing pilot situational awareness of the airport surface movement area

Two studies are being conducted to address airport surface movement area safety and capacity issues by providing enhanced situational awareness information to pilots. One study focuses on obtaining pilot opinion of the Runway Status Light System (RSLS). This system has been designed to reduce the likelihood of runway incursions by informing pilots when a runway is occupied. The second study is a flight demonstration of an rate integrated system consisting of an electronic moving map in the cockpit and display of the aircraft identification to the controller. Taxi route and hold warning information will be sent to the aircraft data link for display on the electronic moving map. This paper describes the plans for the two studies.

Jones, D. R.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Pilot Evaluations of Runway Status Light System

This study focuses on use of the Transport Systems Research Vehicle (TSRV) Simulator at the Langley Research Center to obtain pilot opinion and input on the Federal Aviation Administration's Runway Status Light System (RWSL) prior to installation in an operational airport environment. The RWSL has been designed to reduce the likelihood of runway incursions by visually alerting pilots when a runway is occupied. Demonstrations of the RWSL in the TSRV Simulator allowed pilots to evaluate the system in a realistic cockpit environment.

Young, Steven D.↗
NASA NTRS1996

Loss of Situation Awareness in Pilots: Analysis of Incident Reports

Approximately 75% of all aviation accidents and incidents are attributable to human failures in monitoring, managing, and operating system. Tactical decision errors were found to be a factor in 25 of 37 major US air transport accidents between 1978 and 1990. These two facts demonstrate the inability of some pilots to maintain situation awareness. Situation awareness (SA) is defined as 'the perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future". Thus, when a pilot loses SA, he or she is unable to ether perceive, comprehend, or project the status of the aircraft. In pilots terms, he or she has 'fallen behind the airplane'. Our study this summer involved an analysis of 190 NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) reports.

Eric B. Villeda↗
NASA NTRS1997

Generic Airplane Model Concept and Four Specific Models Developed for Use in Piloted Simulation Studies

A generic airplane model concept was developed to allow configurations with various agility, performance, handling qualities, and pilot vehicle interface to be generated rapidly for piloted simulation studies. The simple concept allows stick shaping and various stick command types or modes to drive an airplane with both linear and nonlinear components. Output from the stick shaping goes to linear models or a series of linear models that can represent an entire flight envelope. The generic model also has provisions for control power limitations, a nonlinear feature. Therefore, departures from controlled flight are possible. Note that only loss of control is modeled, the generic airplane does not accurately model post departure phenomenon. The model concept is presented herein, along with four example airplanes. Agility was varied across the four example airplanes without altering specific excess energy or significantly altering handling qualities. A new feedback scheme to provide angle-of-attack cueing to the pilot, while using a pitch rate command system, was implemented and tested.

Hoffler, Keith D.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Piloted Simulation Tests of Propulsion Control as Backup to Loss of Primary Flight Controls for a B747-400 Jet Transport

Partial failures of aircraft primary flight control systems and structural damages to aircraft during flight have led to catastrophic accidents with subsequent loss of lives (e.g. DC-10, B-747, C-5, B-52, and others). Following the DC-10 accident at Sioux City, Iowa in 1989, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended 'Encourage research and development of backup flight control systems for newly certified wide-body airplanes that utilize an alternate source of motive power separate from that source used for the conventional control system.' This report describes the concept of a propulsion controlled aircraft (PCA), discusses pilot controls, displays, and procedures; and presents the results of a PCA piloted simulation test and evaluation of the B747-400 airplane conducted at NASA Ames Research Center in December, 1996. The purpose of the test was to develop and evaluate propulsion control throughout the full flight envelope of the B747-400 including worst case scenarios of engine failures and out of trim moments. Pilot ratings of PCA performance ranged from adequate to satisfactory. PCA performed well in unusual attitude recoveries at 35,000 ft altitude, performed well in fully coupled ILS approaches, performed well in single engine failures, and performed well at aft cg. PCA performance was primarily limited by out-of-trim moments.

Bull, John↗
NASA NTRS1997

Pilot Non-Conformance to Alerting System Commands

This research project examined the effects of consonance between cockpit displays and alerting system as a technique to encourage pilots to conform to alerting system commands. An experiment used the task of collision avoidance during closely spaced parallel approaches as a case study, building upon previous experiments which identified instances of non-conformance and conflicts between the alerting criteria preferred by pilots, compared to that used by alerting systems. Using a workstation based, part-task simulator, each of 45 subjects completed 45 experiment runs. In each run, the subjects were told they were flying an approach. Their primary task was to keep their wings level despite turbulence through the use of a sidestick. The sidestick commands did not affect the path of the aircraft, however, so that consistent approach paths were be followed. Their secondary task was to indicate when an aircraft on a parallel approach is blundering towards them, as evidenced by the traffic display. Subjects were asked to press different buttons indicating whether they feel an avoidance maneuver is required by the traffic situation or not. At the completion of each run, subjects were asked to rate their confidence in their decision and, if appropriate, to rate the timeliness of automatic alerts when had been given. Three different automatic alert conditions were tested. The "No Automatic Alerts Given" condition is self-explanatory. In the "Automatic Alerts Based on NTZ Criteria" condition, an automatic alert was given when the NTZ criteria was triggered; this criteria is consistent with subject reactions in other studies, in which subjects were found to react, on average, when the other aircraft was 1350 min to the side of the own aircraft. In the "Automatic Alerts Based on MIT Criteria" condition, an automatic alert was given when the MIT criteria was triggered; this criteria was developed by Carpenter and Kuchar for parallel approaches to have better performance, at the cost of increased complexity and higher sensitivity to pilot non-conformance. Three displays were tested. The "Baseline Display" is based on a moving map display, with a top-down view, track-up orientation, iconic presentation of the other aircraft's positions and a text presentation of the other aircraft's altitude. The "NTZ Alert Criteria Shown" display added to the Baseline Display an explicit presentation on the display of the boundary delineating the NTZ criteria, allowing for quick comparison of the other aircraft's position relative to this alert criteria. Likewise, the "MIT Alert Criteria Shown" display added to the Baseline Display an explicit presentation on the display of the boundary delineating the MIT criteria, allowing for quick comparison of the other aircraft's position relative to this alert criteria The test matrix for this experiment was three dimensional, varying displays, alerts and traffic conflict scenarios.

Pritchett, Amy↗
NASA NTRS1961

The Effect of Lateral-Directional Control Coupling on Pilot Control of an Airplane as Determined in Flight and in a Fixed-Base Flight Simulator

A flight and fixed-base simulator study was made of the effects of aileron-induced yaw on pilot opinion of aircraft lateral-directional controllability characteristics. A wide range of adverse and favorable aileron-induced yaw was investigated in flight at several levels of Dutch-roll damping. The flight results indicated that the optimum values of aileron- induced yaw differed only slightly from zero for Dutch-roll damping from satisfactory to marginally controllable levels. It was also shown that each range of values of aileron-induced yawing moment considered satisfactory, acceptable, or controllable increased with an increase in the Dutch- roll damping. The increase was most marked for marginally controllable configurations exhibiting favorable aileron-induced yaw. Comparison of fixed-base flight simulator results with flight results showed agreement, indicating that absence of kinesthetic motion cues did not markedly affect the pilots' evaluation of the type of control problem considered in this study. The results of the flight study were recast in terms of several parameters which were considered to have an important effect on pilot opinion of lateral-directional handling qualities, including the effects of control coupling. Results of brief tests with a three-axis side-arm controller indicated that for control coupling problems associated with highly favorable yaw and cross-control techniques, use of the three-axis controller resulted in a deterioration of control relative to results obtained with the conventional center stick and rudder pedals.

Vomaske, Richard F.↗
NASA NTRS1961

A Fixed-Base-Simulator Study of the Ability of a Pilot to Establish Close Orbits Around the Moon

A study was made on a six-degree-of-freedom fixed-base simulator of the ability of human pilots to modify ballistic trajectories of a 5 space vehicle approaching the moon to establish a circular orbit about 50 miles above the lunar surface. The unmodified ballistic trajectories had miss distances from the lunar surface of from 40 to 80 miles, and a velocity range of from 8,200 to 8,700 feet per second at closest approach. The pilot was given control of the thrust (along the vehicle longitudinal axis) and torques about all three body axes. The information display given to the pilot was a hodograph of the vehicle rate of descent and circumferential velocity, an altimeter, and vehicle attitude and rate meters.

Queijo, M. J.↗
NASA NTRS1961

Dynamic Stability and Control Problems of Piloted Reentry from Lunar Missions

A fixed-base simulator investigation has been made of stability and control problems during piloted reentry from lunar missions. Reentries were made within constraints of acceleration and skipping, in which the pilot was given simulated navigation tasks of altitude and heading angle commands. Vehicles considered included a blunt-face, high-drag capsule, and a low-drag lifting cone, each of which had a trim lift-drag ratio of 0.5. With the provision of three-axis automatic damping, both vehicles were easily controlled through reentry after a brief pilot-training period. With all dampers out, safe reentries could be made and both vehicles were rated satisfactory for emergency operation. In damper-failure conditions resulting in inadequate Dutch roll damping, the lifting-cone vehicle exhibited control problems due to excessive dihedral effect and oscillatory acceleration effects.

Moul, Martin T.↗
NASA NTRS1961

Analytical and Preliminary Simulation Study of a Pilot's Ability to Control the Terminal Phase of a Rendezvous with Simple Optical Devices and a Timer

One method of controlling the terminal phase of a space rendezvous between two vehicles is first to correct the flight path of the controlled vehicle so that a constant line of sight is established between the vehicles. This correction is accomplished by thrusting normal to the sight line in a direction to arrest the angular motion of this line. Once this collision course has been established, the second step is to control the closure rate for a safe approach along the line of sight. Adequate control of this maneuver requires range and closure-rate information. A combined analytical and preliminary simulation study was conducted to determine the ability of a human pilot to control the rendezvous by this method using visual sightings made during the initial collision-course control to obtain the range and closure rate. The analytical phase of the study reviewed the geometric relations between the vehicles and formed the basis for techniques to transform the angular sightings into range and closure rate. A preliminary simulation was then made to investigate the accuracy of these techniques. The simulation consisted of an analog computer, an oscilloscope to represent the view a pilot would have-with a stabilized sight, and a timer. Results indicate that pilots, using an optical sight and a timer, can successfully arrest the angular motion of the line of sight between two rendezvous vehicles and obtain relative range and closure rate with sufficient accuracy to perform the final braking maneuver successfully.

Lineberry, Edgar C., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1959

A Pilot Opinion Study of Lateral Control Requirements for Fighter-Type Aircraft

As part of a continuing NASA program of research on airplane handling qualities, a pilot opinion investigation has been made on the lateral control requirements of fighter aircraft flying in their combat speed range. The investigation was carried out using a stationary flight simulator and a moving flight simulator, and the flight simulator results were supplemented by research tests in actual flight. The flight simulator study was based on the presumption that the pilot rates the roll control of an airplane primarily on a single-degree-of-freedom basis; that is, control of angle of roll about the aircraft body axis being of first importance. From the assumption of a single degree of freedom system it follows that there are two fundamental parameters which govern the airplane roll response, namely the roll damping expressed as a time constant and roll control power in terms of roll acceleration. The simulator study resulted in a criterion in terms of these two parameters which defines satisfactory, unsatisfactory, and unacceptable roll performance from a pilot opinion standpoint. The moving simulator results were substantiated by the in-flight investigation. The derived criterion was compared with the roll performance criterion based upon wing tip helix angle and also with other roll performance concepts which currently influence the roll performance design of military fighter aircraft flying in their combat speed range.

Creer, Brent Y.↗