Abstract
Aiming to ascertain basic display guidelines for improved support of pilot spatial orientation (SO), the visual resonance with the perceptual mechanism for SO was explored in 2 experiments. Postural responses indicated the efficiency of visual cues to control proprioception and equilibrium sense. A display design is suggested that integrates the results with the concepts for an operational head-up display symbology. By means of improved perception of integrated pitch, roll, and yaw information and resonance of synthetic visual flow with the SO mechanism, the design may in the future contribute to combatting pilot spatial disorientation.
Notes
1Besides the aim of improving aircraft systems and displays, SD interventions include training and education for phenomena awareness and SO mechanisms modeling for knowledge improvement.
2For simplicity, the discrimination between IMC and visual meteorological conditions (VMC) is here used with no direct reference to instrument or visual flight rules; see Ercoline, DeVilbiss, and Evans (2004).
3Do note, however, the important distinctions between different types of SD; Type I—unrecognized, Type II—recognized, and Type III—incapacitating.
4An extreme phenomenon in this connection is represented by Johansson's (1977) impoverished peripheral visual stimuli of a few moving dots dominating an otherwise rich full view of the real surroundings and determining perceived full-body motion.
5See Riecke, von der Heyde, and Bülthoff (2005), for example, for to some extent a similar distinction between continuous and instant-based spatial updating of our egocentric mental representation for SO.
6All illustrations of the Gripen HUD concept depict basic configurations and not actual symbology in detail.
7In Van Erp et al. (2007), visual and tactile displays are combined by utilizing the Gripen HUD symbology and a TNO The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research tactile torso display