Development of a Generic Time-to-Contact Pilot Guidance Model

Advanced pilot modeling for prediction of rotorcraft handling qualities in turbulent wind

“…State-of-the-art pilot models for HQs investigations require trajectory planning and tracking conforming to the guidance strategy of a human pilot. Recent progress in preview control behavior [28][29] and bio-inspired optical flow theory [14,32] from piloted experiments provide a good opportunity to satisfy this kind of requirement. The proposed pilot model has shown that it can predict HQs capturing the effect of the vestibular system and SAS.…”

“…The first two functions are dominant when performing rotorcraft maneuvering tasks such as Mission Task Elements (MTE) defined in the rotorcraft HQs performance specification ADS-33 [13]. The stabilization, or compensatory function, refers to the pilot's continuous correctional effort to avoid deviating from a desired flight state [14]. It is a relatively high-frequency control activity and has been the most extensively studied [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

“…It is essentially a flight-path management activity. Pilot control inputs for this function are made at a lower frequency than for the stabilization function [14]. It was generally modelled by a trajectory planning component and a trajectory tracking component [26].…”

“…Classical pilot models generally focused on pilot's stabilization function but not the guidance function, particularly for rotorcraft maneuvering flight. Although significant progress has been made in the development of preview control model [29] and in the use of to model a pilot's guidance strategy [3,14], they rely only on visual cues for guidance.…”