The demonstration and testing of tactile cueing was the subject of a common research undertaking by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center and the German Aerospace Center. The primary objective was to test a torque protection system with both a stick shaking cue generated with an attachable stick shaker and a soft stop cue generated by an active inceptor system. It was tested by five pilots in flight on the RASCAL JUH-60A helicopter and by four pilots in the ground-based simulator of the ACT/FHS (H-135) research helicopter based on a common set of high-performance takeoff mission profiles. The qualitative evaluation showed that the soft stop provided a greater workload reduction than the shaker and was the preferred cue. However, a shaker cue is a promising alternative when the application of an active inceptor system is not possible.
Active side sticks offer the possibility to adjust the force-feel characteristics to account for various piloting tasks and flight conditions. This promises a decrease in pilot workload and an increase in handling qualities. However, the optimum force-feel characteristics are not well understood and modeled; therefore, their tuning still rely on experimental methods. Experimental pilot-in-theloop methods are time-consuming, expensive and have to be repeated with every change in control law dynamics. If a purely mathematical method for force characteristics optimization could be developed based on a better understanding of the principles underlying good force-feel systems, then the optimization could be done more efficiently and offline. This paper presents our current developments and achievements towards this new understanding to assess if and how a purely mathematical method could be derived from selected experiments. Even if this final goal could not be derived yet, the paper presents the selected approach and the lessons learned so far. More precisely, a simulatorbased experiment was developed to provide the data for the later analyses and the identification of mathematical models suitable for that purpose. For this experiment, a roll tracking task is considered whose evaluation is based on both a qualitative (Cooper-Harper rating) and a quantitative criterion. The very encouraging results obtained so far on this scenario are detailed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.