History of Flight Deck Automation - Essay Example

Impact of Flight Deck Automation on Pilot Performance. By Impact of Flight Deck Automation on PilotPerformance. Introduction Cockpit is the place where the pilot and his or her assistant sits when flying the plane. Automation as used in flight means application of technology on the control system of flight with the intention of reducing rate at which human being has to interact with the system either, physical or mentally, and hence increasing reliability and efficiency of the system. The form of automation reviewed in this paper is adaptive automation (AA) on cockpit automation. This article is will review current literature on AA, pertaining to the history of flight deck and how it has changed over time, its automation, milestone in automation and finally how it has affected pilots. History of flight deck automation When aircrafts were invented, continuous monitoring and hands-on by pilots was mandatory if the flight had to be flown successively (Bruseberg, & Johnson, 4). However, with the advancement it aircraft technology, planes that could facilitate long hours of flight were made. As a result, pilots suffered from fatigue and therefore a mechanism had to be invented to minimize this, autopilot: the first step to cockpit automation. In 1912, a corporation by the name Sperry, became the first to develop aircraft with autopilot feature. It was composed of a gyroscopic heading and attitude indicators which were connected to elevators and rudder that were operated by hydraulics. This enable the plane to follow the compass bearing and fly straight without negotiating corners (Damos, 11). Many were inspired by the invention and in the year 1930, Royal Aircraft Establishment, a corporation of England came up with their own autopilot which was referred to as pilots’ assister. It was built from, pneumatically-spun gyroscope, an advancement from the initial hydraulically operated ones. The development grew with the invention and inclusion of instruments that would allow the plane to be flown during the night. Autopilot has undergone computerization in modern planes. Modern level of autopilot are one-axis, two-axis and three-axis. Complex plane uses the three-axial autopilot. The purpose of autopilot is to control the plane when it takes off, during climbing, the smooth level air flight and during landing respectively (Billings, 23). Finally, current autopilot relies heavily on computers rather than the physical compass that was used by earlier aircrafts. Another phase of cockpit automation is in auto-throttle. In initial aircrafts, the pilot used to manually control the flow of fuel to the engine. However, auto-throttle has replaced this thus reducing pilots’ workload. Auto-throttle maintains two parameters: speed and thrust. With the speed parameter, the pilot enters a desired target speed in relation to the stall and maximum speed and the plane will maintain it until next when a change will occur. With thrust, the pilot is able to define the power that the engine should use during a given flight phase. Another deck automation is the Flight Management System. This is flight automated system that has reduced the workload of flight crew. It uses component like GPS, INS and other radio-navigation tools and is usually controlled using a Control Display Unit, from the deck (Hughes, 12). FMS is important in determining the flight position and directing the flight plan. It has a database of all the waypoints, airports, runways, standard terminal arrival. The FMS is preprogramed, with the flight plan, while on the ground and it is used to guide the plane during its flight by calculating the course of the flow. Both the vertical and lateral are catered for by the VNAV (vertical navigation) and the LNAV (lateral navigation) of the FMS respectively. Previous research There has been a lot of publication and reviews concerning the theory of AA focusing on the traditional cockpit system, the proposition and implementation of AA system and its concerns. This section will therefore discuss on various scholar’s work complementing on the inability of this system to consider the workload on the operator as the handle the dynamics on these systems during operation. Secondly, the section will review the need to redesigning computer interfaces in a simpler way so that they can support and enhance human communication and finally look on the effects of implementing this system on human interaction with the systems. Review of workload and AA, interface desing for AA, AA and cockpit interface and finally AA crew interactions, will be done. Workload and AA Empirical study shown that pilots who operate dynamic and complex systems have workload and experience high fatigue levels because of paying attentions to myriads of functions pertaining to the systems and handling different tasks simultaneously. With the introduction of automated cockpit, workload to pilots has become an emerging issue and a current trend. Norman (2) asserted that the workload of fighter aircrafts pilot skyrocketed with the introduction of automated system, to enable decision making, on the cockpit. According to Speyer, workload in AA system is brought about by cognitive load in monitoring the systems. The anxiety one develops when he or she realizes that they have to execute so many commands and functions allocations within the shortest period of time. Secondly, there are too many visual channels that demand monitoring and from which one can extract important information so as to know “which channel is executing which task (Orlady, 11)”. The second workload is caused by practically operating the systems. It has been studied and concluded that many pilots usually find it difficult in knowing when to use and switch between manual and automatic mode. Stats show that most of these pilots failed to make appropriate mode adjustments due to fatigue, workload or poor decision making. Study done by Orlady on the effects of workload on pilot during performance of tasks, entailed a primary and a secondary task. In this study, the participant were given a computer-aided decision making program that suggested, to the participant, whether to use automated or manual control the primary task depending on how the participant had performed on the secondary task. An optimal performance of 20%, on the secondary task has been set and it was exclusive of the primary task (Sater & Woods, 13). With the introduction to the primary task, which was fully automated, it was observed that the optimal performance of the secondary data had risen to 30% even though the optimal performance of primary task was set at 5%. This increase of 5%, expected was 25%, in secondary task strongly suggested increment in workload as a result of monitoring the automated primary task. Following the above results, future design of AA should ensure that the workload of workers is highly minimized so that they have much time in concentrating on situation at hand, that is, situation awareness (SA). Interface and design for AA Besides leading to workload on operators, the situation awareness (SA) of the operatory should also be factored in. Some cockpit AA’s are built with complex interfaces that make the operator spend a lot of time familiarizing with. In addition to that, the interfaces of these systems should be simple to enable pilots change from one mode to another, that is, automatic to manual or manual to automatic. Speyer (13) asserts that, “the success of AA will in large part be determined by system Interface designs that include all methods of information exchange (visual, auditory, haptic, etc.)” This is to mean that the system should relay information to the pilot in a manner that the pilot would not strain in translating the information. Discussed below are issues affecting the practical application of interface design on cockpit automation. 1. AA and Cockpit interfaces It is worth noting that current interfaces of the cockpit have been developed to support the AA level up to some point. However, some negative issues have been noticed. According to Wierner (9), the automated flight management system fails to make clear on which information should be used during manual mode flight and which should be used during automatic mode flight. Research has done to find out reasons for crashing of the American Airlines Flight 965 in Cali in the year 1995 indicates that the pilots were struggling to find out a better place they could land the plane. However, they were confused because the automated system provided a different point of reference for landing while on the other hand the manual system, map, gave different information. Since they did not know which was the correct, they lost control of the plane leading to crash. This concludes that the design of cockpit’s automation system, Flight Management System, was poor and could not give the pilots enough information, about landing position, especially when the systems is set to automatic mode. Different scholars, in their work, have concluded that pilot’s effort to control the plane, during hard times, have been thwarted by the automated system. As far as aviation is concerned, Peter suggested that interface designs ought to, “foster effective communication of activities, task status, and mission goals, as well as the development of useful and realistic conceptual models of system behavior. Enhance operator awareness of his or her own responsibilities, capabilities, and limitations, as well as those of other team members. Support DFA that is quick, easy, and unambiguous (Peter, 8).” These recommendations are very important. However, it is good to know that complexity of AA instead of reducing the amount of information the pilot should have in controlling the automated tasks, it increases it. Another scholar, Palmer suggested that, the interfaces of cockpit systems should be developed in such a way that they support mental model development. This a method in which the mind of the pilot is developed by the system through the constant feedback and the consistently displayed information. This model enable the operator to compare and evaluate the system with the experience the pilot has gained over time, his or her goals and objectives. As to conclusion, working towards achieving a good SA and good mental model is important. However AA systems are becoming more complex and this makes achievement of a good SA and mental model hard. In order to do this, cockpit automation systems should be built in a way that it supports many systems and not just one. This will reduce the number of interfaces that one has to refer and monitor hence increasing SA. 2. Dynamic Cockpit displays for AA This was a concern that was raised by Hitman (9) and that should be put into consideration when designing automation of cockpit. According to him, “automated tasks may require new interfaces and cues so that (a) the status of the automation is clearly indicated to the human, (b) effective coordination of task performance is facilitated, (c) monitoring of the automated task by the human is encouraged, and (d) manual performance of the task after automation is not negatively affected (Harris, 14).” Though these recommendations are good, it is observed that they fail to offer specific guidelines for AA as far as interface design is concerned. It is for this reason that one AA scholar, by name, Morrison et al proposed that interfaces should be made in such a way that they change display, a mechanism he called adaptive display. The change in display is a result of change in control allocation of functions. This will enable one know which control allocation function is active hence ensuring perfect performance of tasks. Use of dynamic displays is a current topic of discussion by researcher. This can be a major step in reducing the degree of hardness of interaction between the operator and the display (Stewart, 10). An added advantage, when implemented in the cockpit, it will allow pilots to customize its interface in relation to the task the pilot is performing or in relation to the current automatic mode of the flight. On the other hand, the dynamic interfaces have their own shortcomings. If their sole purpose is to dynamically change to suit a given level of automation, they end up making people human-machines. Furthermore, the dynamic displays does not give directions on how and when to change from manual to automatic mode flights respectively. This knowledge comes from the pilot who apparently do not have that understanding. According to Clegg (15), “designers often leave critical information out of automated displays in the belief that operators no longer need that information” who is sharply contrasted by Alter & David (5) who purports that, “there is a potential toward display clutter and ill-considered symbols, text, and color in many dynamic display designs for complex systems.” In most cases, it has been the negligence of designers to fail to include fundamental information on these systems. They assumed that the pilots no longer required that information. Designers are however advice to include all relevant information and formats so as to allow the machines and human to communicate and interact freely and without limitations of formats. 3. Summary of interface design for AA Some over-all procedures for AA have been offered in context, but they do not offer the specificity required to entirely support design. Supplementary applied effort is required in this area to assess the extent to which the designs of dynamic displays sustain human performance without amassing intellectual and perceptual loading. In addition, work should be done to discover the effects of using several display formats, as some scholars have recommended, for meeting precise operator statistics necessities and at the same time guaranteeing global consciousness of system states and fluctuations among modes of operation. Precisely, watchful attention needs to be paid to the extra demands connected with distinguishing the need for, and effecting, smooth switches between AA styles. AA and crew interactions When an AA dynamic system has been introduced, it has effects on the interactions between the operator and the machine. Furthermore, this system also has effects on interaction between one member and the other. Reliable literature has shown that crew harmonization among pilots is supportive of watchfulness and SA and may lead to enhancements in system status checking and early revealing of system performance abnormalities from anticipated levels (Boucek, 21). The sources continued to affirm that the vital component of effective multipart system performance is crew coordination over and done with uttered statements. 1. Verbal communication AA may drastically and qualitatively modify the communication arrangements between humans in governing complex systems. Using the instance of aviation automation, increasing proof confirms that team coordination and collaboration in advanced automated moneymaking aircraft cockpits are qualitatively unlike than in the traditional aircraft cockpits. In exceedingly automatic aircraft like the Boeing B-757 or McDonnell Douglas MD-11, the electronic systems have turn out to be important team “members.” There is an intensification in the obligation for operators to aggressively cooperate with automated systems in operations such as programming the system for control allocations via dynamic data entry and interfaces. This has had a noteworthy influence on human–human relations; precisely, spoken communication may take place at lower rates. In addition to that, automated machines have most the information inbuilt. An operator will therefore collect the necessary information without necessarily initiating vocal communication with the other crew members and this may hinder efficient coordination. In commercial airplanes with advanced cockpit automation, pilot and his copilot may opt to talk using the system rather than one-on-one. On the other a hand, research from Spenser (18) shows that in well advanced automated cockpit systems and where the pilot is more learned that his copilot, level of verbal communication is high. In the case where the pilot is more experienced, they engage on task-related issues while in the case where they have same level of experience, they engage in task-relevant conversations. 2. Nonverbal communication According to Miller (3) cockpit automation hinders the nonverbal communication. Take for instance a case where the copilot has to learn what the pilot is doing, example when the pilot is programming the Flight Management System. The copilot may be obstructed due to the layout of the cockpit hence reduce the level in which they communicate nonverbally. On the other hand, cockpit automation may increase nonverbal communication. Take an instance where pilot tell copilot to push a button using gestures. Conclusion Cockpit automation has brought major improvements in aircraft industry. Through it, minimization of fuel has been achieved. In addition to that, the system tips off pilots in real time regarding dangers and this enable pilots take necessary precautions and measures. The future of cockpit automation is also bright. It is hoped that this technology will become more interactive and that the aircraft will interact with pilots though a man-machine language. On the other hand, cockpit automation has its own demerits. It makes pilots depend on it so much that they cannot make viable decisions on their own. Un-programed and unplanned alerts causes distractions drawing pilot’s attention from flying the plane to finding the reason why the alarms are on. Current plane crash have been associated with automation of the cockpit. Pilots have been found to forget the awareness of the plane since they spend much of their time monitoring the cockpit that thinking about the plane. This is to say that automation of cockpit had had damaging effects on human ergonomics. Finally, over automation kills the skills of the pilot in the long-run. References Billings, C. E., (1996). Human-Cantered Aviation Automation: Principles and Guidelines. NASA. Bruseberg, A., & Johnson, P.(2004). Considering temporal aspects for the design of human computer collaboration: identifying suitable foci. Department of Computer Science, University of Bath. Damos, D. L.,(1999). Changes in pilot activities with increasing automation. Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University. Hughes, D. (1992). Automated cockpits: Keeping pilots in the loop. Aviation week and space technology. Norman, S. D., (1998). Flight deck automation: Promises and realities. Moffett Field, CA: NASA. Orlady, H.W. (2001). Training for advanced cockpit technology aircraft. Taipei, Taiwan: ROC. Sater, N.B & Woods D.D., (2002). Pilot interaction with cockpitl automation: Operational experiences with the flight management system. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Speyer J.J., (2003). Communicating: Major human factor in Cockpit design. Long Beach, CA: Society of Automotive Engineers. Wierner, E.L.,(2009). Crew coordination and training in the advanced technology cockpit. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Peter, M.H.,(2003). Automation in corporate aviation: Human factor issues. Daytona Beach: Aeronautical University. Hitman, D.D., (2001). Price of flexibility in intelligent interfaces. Knowledge-Based System, 6(4)., 189-196. Harris, D.(2004). Human factors for flight deck design. England: Ashgate. Eberman, H. (2013). Human factors on the flight deck safe piloting behaviour in practise. New York: Springer. Stewart, . (2012). Emergency Crisis on the Flight Deck. Taiwan: Crowood: Young, John & Peter, S., (2007). Aircraft: the story of the powered flight; New York: Trune Press. Clegg, B.(2011). Inflight Science: a guide to the world from your window plane. Carlfonia: Icon Books. Alter, K. W., & David, M. R.,(2002). Definition of the 2005 flight deck environment. Canada: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Boucek, G. P.,(2006). Flight phase status monitor study: phase II, operational simulation. Federal Aviation Administration: Program Engineering and Maintenance Service. Spenser, J. P.,(2008). The airplane: how ideas gave us wings. Cambridge: HarperCollins. Miller, W. M.,(2014). Eugene Ely, Daredevil Aviator First Shipboard Landing and Take-off. New York: McFarland & Company, Inc.,. Publishers. Read More