Interactions of Outside Visual Cues and Motion Cueing Settings in Yaw Tracking

Abstract

Knowledge of how human operators' tracking behavior is affected by simulator motion cueing settings is of great value for flight simulator design and fidelity evaluations. Previous studies have revealed strong effects of degraded motion cueing quality on human operator control behavior in compensatory tracking, but the presented visual cues in such studies are often not consistent with what operators perceive in more realistic settings, as they typically do not include the visual cues provided by the out-of-the-window view from their vehicle. This paper aims to investigate the effects of the interaction of such outside visual cues and of motion cueing settings on human operator behavior. Thereto, an experiment in a flight simulator was conducted in which participants performed a yaw-axis target-following disturbance-rejection tracking task. The presence of an outside visual scene and simulator motion feedback quality were varied independently. In the experiment, motion cues were either absent or presented with varying attenuation induced by changing the break frequency of a first-order high-pass yaw motion filter. The results indicate a strong effect of outside visual cues on human operator control behavior in the absence of motion feedback, which is comparable to the measured effect of motion feedback. Overall, human operator control behavior was found to be less affected by varying motion cueing settings when the outside visual cues were available in parallel.

Effects of Peripheral Visual Cues in Simulator-Based Training of Multimodal Control Skills

“…A reason for this to happen might be due to the fact that the roll stimulus provided by the checkerboards was perhaps weaker than the yaw visual stimulus provided in Ref. 12. Furthermore, in Ref.…”

“…In the training phase, the performance level of Group V was always better than the performance level reached by Group NV in every component of the tracking error, suggesting that the presence of out-of-the-window visual cues indeed improved human operator performance, as expected from previous studies. 12,13 In Fig. 6(a), it can be seen that Group NV showed a steeper improvement in performance during the training phase, whereas the learning curve for Group V was smoother, mainly because of the contribution of the remnant error seen in Fig.…”

“…This is supported by earlier findings that human operators use out-of-the-window visuals to formulate a similar additional feedback response as they do with physical motion feedback. 12 Therefore, this easier transfer of skills would be visible in higher learning rates in the evaluation condition for subjects in Group V when compared to subjects in Group NV and better task performance in Group V immediately after transfer.…”

“…[9][10][11] Recent studies with compensatory tracking tasks have shown that peripheral visual cues are utilized by human operators to support a human feedback control organization similar to the one observed in tasks with physical motion cues. 12,13 It was proven that the presence of a strong outside visual scene provides lead information on the controlled dynamics in a similar way as achieved by the physical motion feedback, though perhaps not as effectively. 1,13,14 If these findings are taken into consideration from a perspective of simulator-based training, similarities in the way human operators deal with both sensory inputs suggest that outside visual cues might be used as a substitute for true physical motion feedback during initial simulator-based training, as they might create and establish an equivalent feedback channel in the human operator without the need of actual physical motion cues.…”

“…The models used for H pe and H p φ were successfully applied in earlier studies. 12,16,27 The considered model for the human operator error response H pe is given by:…”