HCI in Aircraft

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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.

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Human Factors ErgonomicsHuman Automation
Factors Human Computer Interaction
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Since the Beginning
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Deregulation of the Airlines in 1978

• Leads to further stimulation of the economy

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Horizontal Situation Indicators(HIS)LoranGlobal
Positioning Satellites (GPS)Ground Collision
Avoidance
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My Personal Favorite

• By the early 80s the term The glass cock-pit
  had immerged.

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Today's modern equipment
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The Modern Glass Cockpit

• A340 Airbus most popular airplane today.

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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.

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Pilot Error
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Work-load and Complacency
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(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 modes 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).
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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).
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Night flying, in bad weather is one of the
deadliest combinations for airline pilots
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December 20, 1995 160 die when an American
Airlines 757 crashes into a mountainside near
Cali, Colombia
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August 6, 1997 228 people die when a Korean Air
747 plunges into a hill at night on the island of
Guam
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A look at what a Synthetic Vision screen might
appear like, showing the oncoming terrain
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But more technology only adds to the work load.
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70 of aircraft accidents are still attributed to
human error.
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Then what's fueling the changes today to maintain
and keep the glass cock pit?
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Analog gauges and systems are not compatible with
the airlines needs to survive!

• NEXCOM
• Controller Pilot Data Link Control (CPDLC)

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The most common questions pilots ask with regard
to flight deck automation are
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Whats it doing now?Why did it do
that?andWhat will it do next?. (Wiener,
1989)
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Surprise Functions

• Vertical navigation logic
• Data entry
• Infrequently used features modes
• Data propagation
• Partial system failures

(Sarter Woods, 1992a)
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Not all that different

• Neilsens 10 Heuristics
  Naval Aviation Human Factors
• Visibility of system status 1.
  Sensory-Perceptual
• Match between system and the real world 2.
  Medical/Physiological
• User control and freedom 3. Attitude/Personalit
  y
• Consistency and standards 4. Judgment/Decision
  
• Error prevention 5. Communication
• Recognition rather than recall 6. Crew Factors
  
• Flexibility and efficiency of use 7.
  Design/Systems
• Aesthetics and minimalist design 8.
  Supervisory
• Help users recognize, diagnose,
• and recover from errors
• 10. Help and documentation

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Another significant set of standards

• Billings - Aviation Automation Human Factors
• 1. Accountable
• 2. Subordinate
• 3. Predictable
• 4. Adaptable
• 5. Comprehensible
• 6. Simple
• 7. Flexible
• 8. Dependable
• 9. Informative
• 10. Error resistant and
  Error tolerant

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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
• lthttp//techreports.larc.nasa.gov/ltrs/PDF/2000/m
  tg/NASA-2000-hstew-mr.pdf
• ftp//techreports.larc.nasa.gov/pub/techreports/l
  arc/2000/mtg/NASA-2000-hstew-mr.ps.Z gt
• 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
  over-automation. 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.