HCI in Aircraft
Serious Business
Or
Monkey Business
January 31, 1961 “Ham”, a chimpanzee, worked levers
during his 16 minute space flight. The astrochimp traveled
5,800 mph in a Project Mercury capsule.
Human Factors
Ergonomics
Human Automation Factors
Human Computer Interaction
Since the Beginning
Deregulation of the
Airlines in 1978
Leads to further stimulation of the economy
Horizontal Situation Indicators(HIS)
Loran
Global Positioning Satellites (GPS)
Ground Collision Avoidance
By the early 80’s the term “The
glass cock-pit had immerged.
My Personal Favorite
Today's modern equipment
The Modern Glass Cockpit
A340 Airbus most popular airplane today.
Strangely enough these
aircraft keep turning up in
crash sites, sometimes killing
hundreds of people!
There is only one answer in most
cases investigated by the FAA,
NTSB, and NASA.
“Pilot Error”
“Work-load” and
“Complacency”
(Moscow, 1991 and Nagoya, Japan 1994), an auto flight mode
commanded nose-up pitch while the pilot commanded nose-down pitch
during an autopilot-coupled go-around. In the Moscow incident, the
airplane went through a number of extreme pitch oscillations until the
crew was able to disconnect the automation and gain control. In
Nagoya, the crew inadvertently activated the go-around mode during a
normal approach. The crew attempted to reacquire the glide slope by
commanding nose down elevator, but this conflicted with the auto flight
mode’s logic and pitch up commands. In addition, the automated
stabilizer system had trimmed the aircraft to maximum nose-up,
following its go-around logic (which may not have been clearly
annunciated to the crew).
The crew should have allowed the automated flight mode to control the
aircraft, or should have completely disconnected the automation. The
situation was recoverable, but the crew, interacting with the automation
(and in the presence of reduced feedback), put the aircraft into an
unrecoverable position. An underlying issue relates to the mechanism
enabling a pilot to disconnect the auto flight mode and regain manual
control. The autopilot was designed not to disconnect using the
standard control column force when in go-around mode below a
specific altitude (for protection), and needed to be disconnected by an
alternate mode; the crew may have believed they disconnected the
autopilot and were manually controlling the aircraft when, in fact, the
automation was still operating. Ultimately, the automated flight mode
dominated, the aircraft pitched up, stalled and crashed” (Rudisill, March
1, 2000).
Night flying, in bad weather is one of the
deadliest combinations for airline pilots
December 20, 1995 – 160 die when an American
Airlines 757 crashes into a mountainside near Cali,
Colombia
August 6, 1997 – 228 people die when a Korean Air
747 plunges into a hill at night on the island of Guam
A look at what a Synthetic Vision screen might
appear like, showing the oncoming terrain
But more technology only adds to the
work load.
70% of aircraft accidents are
still attributed to human error.
Then what's fueling the changes
today to maintain and keep the
glass cock pit?
• NEXCOM
• Controller Pilot Data Link Control (CPDLC)
Analog gauges and systems are not compatible with the
airlines needs to survive!
“The most common questions pilots
ask with regard to flight deck
automation are:”
“What’s it doing now?”
“Why did it do that?”
and
“What will it do next?”.
(Wiener, 1989)
Surprise Functions
Vertical navigation logic
Data entry
Infrequently used features & modes
Data propagation
Partial system failures
(Sarter & Woods, 1992a)
Not all that different
Neilsen’s 10 Heuristics
1.
2.
3.
4.
Visibility of system status
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Consistency and standards
5.
Error prevention
6.
Recognition rather than recall
7.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
8.
9.
Aesthetics and minimalist design
Help users recognize, diagnose,
and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation
Naval Aviation Human Factors
1. Sensory-Perceptual
2. Medical/Physiological
3. Attitude/Personality
4. Judgment/Decision
5. Communication
6. Crew Factors
7. Design/Systems
8. Supervisory
Another significant set of standards
Billings - Aviation Automation Human Factors
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Accountable
Subordinate
Predictable
Adaptable
Comprehensible
Simple
Flexible
Dependable
Informative
Error resistant and Error tolerant
Bibliography
M. Neville - Ag Cat photo
Proctor, P., (1995). “What price is a mistake?” Industry Outlook. New York: McGraw-Hill. Pg. 17.
Nordwall, D., “FAA launches Nexcom with ATC radio contact” Aviation Week & Space Technology. Pg. 47. Aug.
6th, 2001.
Rudisill, M.Ph.D., “Crew Automation Interaction…” NASA. March 1, 2000. Online. Internet.
Feb.6,2002.Available:
<http://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltrs/PDF/2000/mtg/NASA-2000-hstew-mr.pdf
ftp://techreports.larc.nasa.gov/pub/techreports/larc/2000/mtg/NASA-2000-hstew-mr.ps.Z >
Flottau, J., “Runway Incursion Kills 118 at Milan-Linate” Aviation Week & Space Technology. Pg. 47. Oct. 15th,
2001.
Wells, A., (2001). Commercial Aviation Safety New York: McGraw-Hill.
Billings, C.E. (1991) “Human-Centered Aircraft Automation: A concept and guidelines” NASA. Technical
Memorandum 103885. Moffett Field, CA: NASA Ames Research Center.
Billings, C.E. (1997) “Aviation automation: The search for a human-centered approach”
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence-Erlbaum Associates.
Norman, D.A. (1989) “The “problem” of automation: Inappropriate feedback and interaction, not “overautomation.” Human Factors in High-Risk Situations, The Royal Society.
Wiener, E.L. (1989) “Human factors of advanced technology (“glass cockpit”) transport
Aircraft. NASA Contractor Report 177528. Moffett Field, CA: Ames Research Center.
Sarter, N.B. and Woods, D.D. (1991) “Pilot Interaction with Cockpit Automation I: Operational Experiences with
the Flight Management System (FMS”). Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory, Department of Industrial
and Systems Engineering, The Ohio State University.
Sarter, N.B. and Woods, D.D. (1992a) “Pilot Interaction with Cockpit Automation II: An
experimental study of pilots’ models and awareness of the Flight Management System”.
Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Ohio
State University.
Sarter, N. B. and Woods, D. D. (1992b) “Pilot interaction with cockpit automation I: Operational experiences with
the flight management system”. International Journal of Aviation Psychology, 2(4), 303-321.