Feedback of Anti-G Straining Performance of Pilots: The Use of the Late Ear Pulse Waveform as a Feedback Signal for Blood Pressure

摘要

As a pan of a joint study of the National Aeromedical Institute (Soesterberg, the Netherlands), the National Aerospace Laboratory (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and the Polish Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine (Warsaw, Poland) an in-flight experiment was performed to evaluate the use of psycho-physiological measures as feedback parameters of physiological and mental strain. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the use of the ear pulse arterial waveform as a potential feedback parameter of a pilot blood pressure status during accelerations. The results of this study showed that the amplitude of the ear pulse waveform decreases with increasing acceleration during aerobatic profiles. The pulse transit time (PIT) of the ear pulse waveform increases with increasing acceleration during aerobatic profiles. These changes agree with the hypothesis that these changes reflect a decrease in blood pressure on head level during these profiles. Heart rates did not show a correlation with the acceleration levels during the investigated aerobatic profiles. It is discussed that this is the result from the response time of heart rate regulations, being not fast enough to follow the changes of the accelerations in the aerobatic profiles. The results of this study support the use of the amplitude and the PIT of the ear pulse waveform as an online feedback parameter of changes in blood pressure at head level, during exposure of a pilot to accelerations.