ACTIVE NOISE REDUCTION TEST

摘要

For most military aircraft, communication between the Pilot and the Ground Crew has a potential for breakdown mostly because of the background noise coming through the headset. But it could become more than just a distraction. Taking the effort to focus on communications could cause a Human Factors hazard (a lack of situational awareness). Problems with Situational Awareness were found to be the leading causal factor in a review of military aviation mishaps (Hartel, Smith, and Price, 1991). In a study of accidents among major airlines, 88percent of those involving human error could be attributed to problems with situation awareness as opposed to problems with decision making or flight skills (Endsley, 1995) Also, loud decibels could cause hearing loss and over time make communications a downward spiraling problem for pilots. Active Noise Reduction (ANR) is a technology that cancels out the damaging noise, creating improved communications and protecting the pilot's hearing. There are many companies that design products utilizing this ANR technology for all types of aircraft. In 2004, testing had been done with one such ANR Design Company with an F-16D aircraft, owned and operated by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Fort Worth. There were two objectives for flight testing: 1. collecting cockpit noise data in the intent to design an ANR headset for the F-16 pilot and 2) evaluating an ANR product designed for the ground crew. This paper will discuss further the theory of Active Noise Reduction, the objective of the tests, the testing equipment used, and the procedure of collecting data for the Ground & Flight Test. It will also show that the best method to improve communications when using the F-16D aircraft is to apply the ANR technology to the ground crew, not necessarily the pilot.