TITLE:
Contrastive Analysis of Distractions to Pilot Caused by Various Flight Instrument Displays
AUTHORS:
Devinder Kumar Yadav, Yingxue Zhao, Chunyi Gao, Yufei Wang, Tianzuo Dong, Dinesh Bhatia
KEYWORDS:
Aviation, Touchscreen, Safety, Conventional, Cockpit, Simulate, Flight
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.12 No.2,
March
31,
2022
ABSTRACT: Automation of aircraft instrument displays enhances flight
safety, but it also increases complexity and pilot workload. Executing changes
in flight plan, navigation or communication during flight using flight
instrument switches often increases pilots’ workload and this may also cause distraction that adds potential risks to flight safety. This study compares the conventional avionics
panel and touchscreen avionic panel to find out the least distractive panel for
the pilots. Thirty simulated flights using four different pilots were carried
out; and aircraft speed, altitude and heading parameters using both avionics
systems were observed to study the operational efficiency and pilot distraction
resulted from each of the avionic systems. The distraction was examined by a parameter analysis based on the Mean Squared Error
(MSE) mathematical model and visually by recording videos of each
simulated flight. The results indicate that the touchscreen system is more
efficient and less erroneous for the aircraft in maintaining the parameters as
compared with the conventional system. There is also a clear relationship
between task completion time and disruption level on the parameters control.