3D Navigation and Integrated Hazard Display in Advanced Avionics: Performance, Situation Awareness, and Workload Technical rept

摘要

Three experiments compared 2 and 3 dimensional formats of an integrated hazard display within a synthetic vision system display suite. In experiment 1, a 2D coplanar representation of traffic was compared with either a single 3D (exocentric) display, or a split screen display containing the 3D exocentric display above a vertical situation display. Student pilots were employed. Traffic location accuracy was slightly poorer with the 3D display, a result of 3D ambiguity. There was some evidence for inappropriate attention allocation between the two panels of the split screen display. In experiment 2, a high fidelity simulation flight was flown in simulated VMC with the three hazard displays representing both traffic and terrain. Certified flight instructors were employed. Visual scanning was measured. Again the single 3D display was the least effective, and there was slight evidence that the split screen display was most effective, across all measures, although in many of these, the two 2-panel displays did not differ. Scanning analysis revealed that more attention was allocated to the 2-panel representation of hazards than to the single panel of the 3D display, and this allocation improved hazard awareness, while not harming flight path tracking supported by the primary flight display. Ten of 24 pilots failed to notice an off-normal event, a radio tower visible in the outside world, but not represented on the head down displays. Failure to notice was associated with less scanning in the outside world In experiment 3, only the two 2-panel displays were compared in their support for a more difficult traffic and weather change monitoring task, using a different set of certified flight instructors. Again there were only small differences between the displays, this time slightly favoring the co-planar display over the split screen display. The latter suffered because its perspective view diminished the size of more distant traffic. A majority of pilots preferred the coplanar display. Scanning assessment revealed that there were only slight differences in attention allocation between the two displays. 21 of 24 pilots detected the off-normal event an airplane on the approach path following breakout from IMC.