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At least 1,099 records · Page 61
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

Pilot-in-the-Loop Evaluation of a Yaw Rate to Throttle Feedback Control with Enhanced Engine Response

This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of a yaw rate to throttle feedback system designed to replace a damaged rudder. It can act as a Dutch roll damper and as a means to facilitate pilot input for crosswind landings. Enhanced propulsion control modes were implemented to increase responsiveness and thrust level of the engine, which impact flight dynamics and performance. Piloted evaluations were performed to determine the capability of the engines to substitute for the rudder function under emergency conditions. The results showed that this type of implementation is beneficial, but the engines' capability to replace the rudder is limited.

Litt, Jonathan S.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Pilot Field Test: Use of a Compression Garment During a Stand Test After Long-Duration Space Flight

Orthostatic intolerance (OI) is a concern for astronauts returning from long-duration space flight. One countermeasure that has been used to protect against OI after short-duration bed rest and space flight is the use of lower body and abdominal compression garments. However, since the end of the Space Shuttle era we have not been able to test crewmembers during the first 24 hours after landing on Earth. NASA's Pilot Field Test provided us the opportunity to test cardiovascular responses of crewmembers wearing the Russian Kentavr compression garment during a stand test at multiple time points throughout the first 24 hours after landing. HYPOTHESIS We hypothesized that the Kentavr compression garment would prevent an increase in heart rate (HR) >15 bpm during a 3.5-min stand test. METHODS: The Pilot Field Test was conducted up to 3 times during the first 24 hours after crewmembers returned to Earth: (1) either in a tent adjacent to the Soyuz landing site in Kazakhstan (approx.1 hr) or after transportation to the Karaganda airport (approx. 4 hr); (2) during a refueling stop in Scotland (approx.12 hr); and (3) upon return to NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) (approx.24 hr). We measured HR and arterial pressure (finger photoplethysmography) for 2 min while the crewmember was prone and throughout 3.5 min of quiet standing. Eleven crewmembers consented to participate; however, 2 felt too ill to start the test and 1 stopped 30 sec into the stand portion of the test. Of the remaining 8 crewmembers, 2 did not wear the Russian Kentavr compression garment. Because of inclement weather at the landing site, 5 crewmembers were flown by helicopter to the Karaganda airport before initial testing and received intravenous saline before completing the stand test. One of these crewmembers wore only the portion of the Russian Kentavr compression garment that covered the lower leg and thus lacked thigh and abdominal compression. All crewmembers continued wearing the Russian Kentavr compression garment during the second testing session in Scotland, but none wore it during testing at JSC. RESULTS: The mean Delta HR from the supine to standing position in the 8 crewmembers measured pre-flight or 60 days after return from long-duration space flight was 9.8 bpm. During the first few hours after landing from long-duration space flight, the mean Delta HR of the 6 crewmembers who wore the Russian Kentavr compression garment in Kazakhstan or Karaganda was +14 bpm and the change in mean arterial pressure (Delta MAP) was +0.8 mmHg, while the 2 crewmembers who did not wear the Russian Kentavr compression garment had a Delta HR of +38 bpm and a Delta MAP of +1.1 mmHg. In Scotland, 4 crewmembers wore the Russian Kentavr compression garment and had a Delta HR of +7.4 bpm while the 3 crewmembers who did not wear it had a Delta HR of +25.0 bpm. Seven crewmembers were tested upon return to JSC approx. 24 hr after landing, but none wore the Russian Kentavr compression garment and their Delta HR was 16.0 bpm. CONCLUSIONS: These are the first stand-test data to be collected from long-duration crewmembers during the first 24 hr of re-adaptation to gravity on Earth. The Delta HR measured in crewmembers who completed the stand-test while wearing Kentavr within the first approx.4 hours after returning to Earth was only slightly elevated from pre-flight Delta HR, while the few subjects who did not wear the Russian Kentavr compression garment had a much larger increase in HR in order to maintain arterial pressure throughout 3.5-min of standing. These data demonstrate the effectiveness of a compression garment in preventing large increases in HR during a 3.5 min stand test after long-duration space flight. However, the fact that three crewmembers were too ill to complete the test or was not able to complete 3.5 min of standing despite wearing the Russian Kentavr compression garment indicates that wearing a compression garment does not resolve all problems crewmembers face during the period of re-adaptation immediately after return to Earth's gravity.

Laurie, S. S.↗
NASA NTRS1962

Development and Use of Mark Sense Record Cards for Recording Medical Data on Pilots Subjected to Acceleration Stress

A TIME-HONORED system of recording medical histories and the data obtained on physical and laboratory examination has been that of writing the information on record sheets that go into a folder for each patient. In order to have information which would be more readily retrieved, 'a program was initiated in 1952 by the U. S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine in connection with their "Care of the Flyer" study to place this information on machine record cards. In 1958, a machine record card method was developed for recording medical data in connection with the astronaut selection program. Machine record cards were also developed by the Aero Medical Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory, Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, Pennsylvania, for use in connection with a variety of tests including acceleration stress.1 Therefore, a variety of systems resulted in which data of a medical nature could easily be recalled. During the NASA, Ames Research Center centrifuge studies/'S the pilot subjects were interviewed after each centrifuge run, or series of runs, and subjective information was recorded in a log book by the usual history taking methods referred to above. After the methods Were reviewed, it' was recognized that a card system would be very useful in recording data from our pilots after they had been exposed to acceleration stress. Since the acceleration stress cards already developed did not meet our requirements, it was decided a different card was needed.

Smedal, Harald A.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Flight Envelope Information-Augmented Display for Enhanced Pilot Situation Awareness

This paper presents an interface system display which is conceived to improve pilot situation awareness with respect to a flight envelope protection system developed for a mid-sized transport aircraft. The new display is designed to complement existing cockpit displays, and to augment them with information that relates to both aircraft state and the control automation itself. In particular, the proposed display provides cues about the state of automation directly in terms of pilot control actions, in addition to flight parameters. The paper also describes a forthcoming evaluation test plan that is intended to validate the developed interface by assessing the relevance of the displayed information, as well as the adequacy of the display layout.

Ackerman, Kasey A.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Function Allocation between Automation and Human Pilot for Airborne Separation Assurance

Maintaining safe separation between aircraft is a key determinant of the airspace capacity to handle air transportation. With the advent of satellite-based surveillance, aircraft equipped with the needed technologies are now capable of maintaining awareness of their location in the airspace and sharing it with their surrounding traffic. As a result, concepts and cockpit automation are emerging to enable delegating the responsibility of maintaining safe separation from traffic to the pilot; thus increasing the airspace capacity by alleviating the limitation of the current non-scalable centralized ground-based system. In this paper, an analysis of allocating separation assurance functions to the human pilot and cockpit automation is presented to support the design of these concepts and technologies. A task analysis was conducted with the help of Petri nets to identify the main separation assurance functions and their interactions. Each function was characterized by three behavior levels that may be needed to perform the task: skill, rule and knowledge based levels. Then recommendations are made for allocating each function to an automation scale based on their behavior level characterization and with the help of Subject matter experts.

Idris, Husni↗
NASA NTRS2016

UAS Pilot Evaluations of Suggestive Guidance on Detect-and-Avoid Displays

Minimum display requirements for Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) systems are being developed in order to support the expansion of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS). The present study examines UAS pilots' subjective assessments of four DAA display configurations with varying forms of maneuver guidance. For each configuration, pilots rated the intuitiveness of the display and how well it supported their ability to perform the DAA task. Responses revealed a clear preference for the DAA displays that presented suggestive maneuver guidance in the form of "banding" compared to an Information Only display, which lacked any maneuver guidance. Implications on DAA display requirements, as well as the relation between the subjective evaluations and the objective performance data from previous studies are discussed.

unmanned aircraft systems↗
NASA NTRS2016

Human Factors of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems: Lessons from Incident Reports

An exploratory study is being conducted to examine the feasibility of collecting voluntary critical incident reports from RPAS pilots. Twenty-three experienced RPAS pilots volunteered to participate in focus groups in which they described critical incidents from their own experience. Participants were asked to recall (1) incidents that revealed a system flaw, or (2) highlighted a case where the human operator contributed to system resilience or mission success. Participants were asked to only report incidents that could be included in a public document. A total of 90 incidents were reported. Human factor issues included the impact of reduced sensory cues, traffic separation in the absence of an out-the-window view, control latencies, vigilance during monotonous and ultra-long endurance flights, control station design considerations, transfer of control between control stations, the management of lost link procedures, and decision-making during emergencies.

human factors↗
NASA NTRS2016

UAS Pilot Evaluations of Suggestive Guidance on Detect-and-Avoid Displays

Minimum display requirements for Detect-and-Avoid (DAA) systems are being developed in order to support the expansion of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS). The present study examines UAS pilots subjective assessments of four DAA display configurations with varying forms of maneuver guidance. For each configuration, pilots rated the intuitiveness of the display and how well it supported their ability to perform the DAA task. Responses revealed a clear preference for the DAA displays that presented suggestive maneuver guidance in the form of banding compared to an Information Only display, which lacked any maneuver guidance. Implications on DAA display requirements, as well as the relation between the subjective evaluations and the objective performance data from previous studies are discussed.

unmanned aircraft systems↗
NASA NTRS2015

Pilot Deployment of the LDSD Parachute via a Supersonic Ballute

The Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) Project required the use of a pilot system due to the inability to mortar deploy its main supersonic parachute. A mortar deployed 4.4 m diameter supersonic ram-air ballute was selected as the pilot system for its high drag coefficient and stability relative to candidate supersonic parachutes at the targeted operational Mach number of 3. The ballute underwent a significant development program that included the development of a new liquid methanol-based pre-inflation system to assist the ballute inflation process. Both pneumatic and pyrotechnic mortar tests were conducted to verify orderly rigging deployment, bag strip, inflation aid activation, and proper mortar performance. The ballute was iteratively analyzed between fluid and structural analysis codes to obtain aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic estimates as well as estimates of the ballute's structural integrity and shape. The ballute was successfully flown in June 2014 at a Mach number of 2.73 as part of the first LDSD supersonic flight test and performed beyond expectations. Recovery of the ballute indicated that it did not exceed its structural or thermal capabilities. This flight set a historical precedent as it represented the largest ballute to have ever been successfully flown at this Mach number by a NASA entity.

Tanner, Christopher L.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Heads-Up Display with Virtual Precision Approach Path Indicator as Implemented in a Real-Time Piloted Lifting-Body Simulation

This document describes the heads-up display (HUD) used in a piloted lifting-body entry, approach and landing simulation developed for the simulator facilities of the Simulation Development and Analysis Branch (SDAB) at NASA Langley Research Center. The HUD symbology originated with the piloted simulation evaluations of the HL-20 lifting body concept conducted in 1989 at NASA Langley. The original symbology was roughly based on Shuttle HUD symbology, as interpreted by Langley researchers. This document focuses on the addition of the precision approach path indicator (PAPI) lights to the HUD overlay.

Neuhaus, Jason R.↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA Pilot-Engaged Expert Response Using IBM Watson Technology: Prototype Evaluation of Knowledge Retrieval System

NASA Langley Research Center and IBM have been investigating the use of IBM Watson technology in aerospace research and development. One application of Watson technology is the Pilot-Engaged Expert Response (PEER) use case. The PEER system is envisioned as an in-cockpit advisor that will act as a source of situationally-relevant information for pilots and other flight crew members to assist in decision making about real-time events and situations that arise in the course of aircraft operations. PEER will make available vast stores of knowledge and information quickly and directly, putting important informational resources where they are needed most. IBM has worked with NASA to develop an architecture and articulate a roadmap for the development of the PEER system. That vision is built around Watson Discovery Advisor (WDA) software solution, derived from IBM's Jeopardy!-winning automatic question answering system. PEER makes use of WDA's sophisticated question-answering capabilities as its core, adding important User Interface components and other customizations for the cockpit environment, including communication with flight systems and other external data sources. The development plan for PEER includes four development stages, with the current project constituting the first phase. In this project, a prototype instance of PEER was successfully adapted to the aviation domain, enabling users to ask questions about aviation topics and receive useful and accurate answers to these questions. Major tasks accomplished include the development of procedures for domain adaptation through automatic lexicon extraction from domain glossaries; generation of question-answer training data which was used to train the system; and assessment of the effectiveness of domain adaptation, which showed a dramatic improvement in the ability of the PEER system to answer domain-relevant questions. In addition, the vision for the PEER system was pushed forward by the articulation of a plan for the automatic enhancement of question-answering with contextual information. This initial phase focused on two main goals: 1) the targeted domain adaptation of the underlying WDA system to the aviation domain; and, 2) the design of the software systems needed to leverage flight-contextual data. Domain adaptation of the WDA system proceeds via three main activities: Domain data ingestion, lexical customization and model training. A textual corpus consisting of 1,147 individual documents with more than 7.5 million words of text was ingested into the system and this served as the basis of all further development. A domain lexicon of over 3,500 aviation-domain terms was semi-automatically generated from domain documents and used to train the system. In addition, a set of over 500 question-answer (QA) pairs relevant to the PEER use case was developed; these were used to train and assess the system. These important first steps established the basis for the PEER system. In addition, steps were taken towards the integration of the PEER system into the cockpit environment with the development of a functional design for the Contextual Data Augmentation (CDA) subsystem. This subsystem brings to bear contextual data to improve system responses. It has three main submodules: the Contextual Data Collection module, the Contextual Data Selection module, and the Contextual QA Augmentation module. These modules form a processing pipeline that addresses the problems associated with automatically integrating information from external resources into the knowledge-retrieval mechanism.

Machine learning↗
NASA NTRS2014

An Experimental Study of the Effect of Transparency on Pilot Trust in the Emergency Landing Planner

This experimental study examined the effects of transparency (operationalized as increasing levels of explanation) on pilot trust of an automated emergency landing planner. A low-fidelity study was conducted where commercial pilots (N12) interacted with simulated recommendations from NASA's Emergency Landing Planner (ELP). These recommendations varied in their associated levels of transparency. Results indicated that trust in the ELP was influenced by the level of transparency within the human-machine interface of the ELP.

transparency↗
NASA NTRS2014

Flight Deck Robustness/Conformance Testing with a Surface Management System: An Integrated Pilot-Controller Human-in-the-Loop Surface Operations Simulation

An integrated flight deck and controller human-in-the-loopsimulation was conducted with a total of 120 Dallas-Ft.Worth (DFW) taxi-out operations. In this first integratedPilot-Controller Spot and Runway Departure Advisor(SARDA) simulation, ATC Ground and Local Controllersused the SARDA decision support tool to plan and issuespot release clearances and departure clearances. TheAirport and Terminal Area Simulator (ATAS), a simulatedB737NG piloted, in turn, by 10 commercial transportparticipant pilots, was integrated into the realisticsimulation traffic environment. In the simulation,controllers used SARDA advisories to issue spot release,taxi route, and runway/departure radio voice clearances toall aircraft on the airport surface. Simulation resultsindicated that under a variety of observed pilot/aircraftperformance variations, SARDA yielded controlleradvisories that were: Supportive of current-day time-basedoperations; Compatible with controllers’ expectations;Predictive of actual take-off times; and, Adaptable to offnominalevents. An Information Sharing Display, thatpresented SARDA sequence and timing information on theflight deck, was considered useful for both NextGenoperations and current-day time-based Traffic ManagementInitiative (TMI) operations.

Foyle, David C.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Overview of the PLEXIL Plan Execution Technology and its Applications in Autonomous Piloting Projects at NASA

Automated planning is a key Artificial Intelligence technology enabling Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and the eminent reality of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). It produces plans, which formalize procedures often performed by humans. Plans differ from other kinds of computer programs in their ability to react and interact with a dynamically changing environment. Aviation plans must encode the procedural knowledge, reasoning capability, and capacity for multi-tasking held by competent human pilots. Correct execution of these plans (performed by software called an executive) in the dynamic airspace environment is vital to the success of each automated flight, and the safety of the vehicle and all things in its path. In the early 2000s NASA developed a plan representation language and executive called PLEXIL (Plan Execution Interchange Language) that has successfully been applied in several NASA aviation and UAS projects. Autonomy Operating System (AOS), Cockpit Hierarchical Automated Planning and Execution (CHAP-E), and ICAROUS are all projects that have used PLEXIL to help encode and automatically execute flight procedures, some normally performed by human pilots. AOS also automates a subset of pilot/Air Traffic Control communication towards enabling UAS entry into the National Airspace. PLEXIL has been open-source software since 2008 and has seen usage in a wide range of prototypical autonomy applications in academia, government, and industry. In this presentation, we describe PLEXIL and highlight its significant accomplishments in the aviation domain.

Dalal, Michael↗
NASA NTRS2019

Pilot Sensitivity to Simulator Flight Dynamics Model Formulation for Stall Training

A piloted simulation study was performed in the Cockpit Motion Facility at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Langley Research Center. The research was motivated by the desire to reduce the commercial transport airplane fatal accident rate due to in-flight loss of control. The purpose of this study, which focused on a generic T-tail transport airplane, was to assess pilot sensitivity to flight dynamics model formulation used during a simulator stall recognition and recovery training/demonstration profile. To accomplish this, the flight dynamics model was designed with many configuration options. The model options were based on recently acquired static and dynamic stability and control data from sources that included wind tunnel, water tunnel, and computational fluid dynamics. The results, which are specific to a transport airplane stall recognition and recovery guided demonstration scenario, showed the two most important aerodynamic effects (other than stick pusher) to model were stall roll- off and the longitudinal static stability characteristic associated with the pitch break.

Cunningham, Kevin↗
NASA NTRS2019

Increasing Pilot’s Understanding of Future Automation State – an Evaluation of an Automation State and Trajectory Prediction System

A pilot in the loop flight simulation study was conducted at NASA Langley Research Center to evaluate a trajectory prediction system. The trajectory prediction system computes a five-minute prediction of the lateral and vertical path of the aircraft given the current and intent state of the automation. The prediction is shown as a graphical representation so the pilots can form an accurate mental model of the future state. Otherwise, many automation changes and triggers are hidden from the flight crew or need to be consolidated to understand if a change will occur and the exact timing of the change. Varying dynamic conditions like deceleration can obscure the future trajectory and the ability to meet constraints, especially in the vertical dimension. Current flight deck indications of flight path assume constant conditions and do not adequately support the flight crew to make correct judgments regarding constraints. The study was conducted using ten commercial airline crews from multiple airlines, paired by airline to minimize procedural effects. Scenarios spanned a range of conditions that provided evaluation in a realistic environment with complex traffic and weather conditions. In particular, scenarios probed automation state and loss of state awareness. The technology was evaluated and contrasted with current state-of-the-art flight deck capabilities modeled from the Boeing 787. Objective and subjective data were collected from aircraft parameters, questionnaires, audio/video recordings, head/eye tracking data, and observations. This paper details findings about the trajectory prediction system including recommendations about further study.

Etherington, Timothy J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Crew Autonomy through Self-Scheduling: Scheduling Performance Pilot Study

Within the domain of human spaceflight, crew scheduling for International Space Station (ISS) remains a human-driven planning task. Large teams of flight controllers (called Ops Planners) spend weeks creating violation-free schedules for all crewmembers. As NASA considers long-duration exploration missions, the necessary shift of scheduling and planning management from Ops Planners to crew members requires significant research and investigation of crew performance to complete these scheduling tasks. This pilot study was conducted to evaluate non-expert human performance for the task of planning and scheduling, focusing on scheduling problems that increased in complexity based on the number of activities to be scheduled and the number of planning constraints. Nine non-expert planners were recruited to complete scheduling tasks using Playbook, a scheduling software. The results of this pilot study show that scheduling performance decreased as scheduling workload (i.e. number of activities and percent of activities with planning constraints) increased. This paper provides evidence towards developing a model for scheduling task difficulty and identifies potential implications for future automated aids for flight crew scheduling.

planning↗