<title>Development of a 3D stereoscopic flight guidance display</title>

Abstract

As part of an interdisciplinary research project, sponsored by the German Research Community (DFG), the Darmstadt University of Technology investigates the potential offered by stereoscopic flight guidance displays for improving pilot situation awareness. The research aims to formulate ergonomic design recommendations for this type of display.Recent developments in display technology offer new opportunities to improve human-machine interfaces in the cockpit. The utilization of three-dimensional display symbology, as a depiction of three-dimensional sensor or database information, has become an accepted practice in modern enhanced and synthetic vision systems. Nevertheless, the information is depicted on a conventional two-dimensional screen. This can cause problems and errors during the cognitive process of depth perception. The application of stereoscopic technology can add an additional cue which is intuitively seized by the observer.The project concentrates on stereoscopic perspective flight guidance displays as a head down display. The extension to other display types like navigation or head-up display is possible. Because of the complexity of a modern synthetic vision display, the project contains experiments on different levels of abstraction, ranging from classic parameter experiments to flight simulator tests. The stereoscopic layout takes into consideration specific informational needs within different flight phases and is evaluated by means of pilot performance and pilot strain.