Development of a Flight Simulator and an Intelligent Symbology Management System for Helmet Mounted Displays in Rotorcraft

摘要

The overall objective of this project was to develop and evaluate an innovative and intelligent information presentation system for helmet-mounted displays (HMDs) in military helicopters. The subordinate objectives included: (a) defining specific information elements that should be presented via the HMD, (b) developing a powerful, portable, flight simulator to permit rapid identification and evaluation of candidate symbols and their management, and (copyright) developing and testing innovative flight and mission information symbology management concepts, realistically demonstrating the most promising candidates on the portable simulator. The report describes the symbology management issues of mode switching and information organization and the heavy burden of Army mission management tasks, and presents HMD solutions to the current shortcomings, focusing on 'augmented reality' as the key to workload reduction and situation awareness enhancement. The report also describes the design and development of the PRISMS virtual reality flight simulator, and how it was used to conduct a formal experiment with 14 Apache pilots. The experiment demonstrated the overwhelming advantages of new earth-fixed HMD symbols such as waypoint and engagement area markers. A wealth of pilot comments and subjective ratings on these and other symbols and their intelligent management is also presented.