Functional Evaluation of an Electroluminescent Display for Control of a Submersible Vehicle

摘要

An electroluminescent display for indicating position deviations and rates for a submersible vehicle in six axes of control was designed and fabricated, and performance with it was compared to performance with a conventional display panel containing comparable information. Both naive and trained subjects were used, the task being to maintain the vehicle in a hover for a 3-min. period at a reference position in the X, Y, and Z axes, and to maintain heading and level attitude. An analog computer was programmed to simulate the dynamics of a submersible vehicle, activating the selected display in response to inputs from a 6 degree-of-freedom control stick. Forcing function generators were used to provide position displacement signals, simulating deep sea currents in each translational axis. Three naive subjects were tested for 36 trials on each display. Results indicate subjects can perform a submersible hover task equally well using conventional displays or digital electroluminescent displays. Two of the naive subjects showed superior overall performance using the conventional display; the third was superior on the electroluminescent display. All three were found to be more proficient using the rotational axes of display than the translational axes on the electroluminescent display. One of the trained subjects confirmed this tendency; the other trained subject exhibited superior performance on the electroluminescent display in 5 of the 6 control axes. It was concluded that with appropriate display design, the medium of electroluminescence appears to be satisfactory for the control of this class of vehicle. (Author)