Manual Control in Target Tracking Tasks as a Function of Controller Characteristics: A Flight Simulator Investigation -- Phase II,

Abstract

An investigation was conducted of fingertip controllers which were integrated into an aircraft throttle and used in a target acquisition and tracking task. The experimental variables included two types of controllers (force and displacement), and two types of output function (linear and step), under three levels of gain and three levels of target speed. In the evaluation, sixteen pilots performed an aircraft control task in addition to a target tracking task in a fixed base flight simulator. Absolute pitch and roll deviations were obtained to measure aircraft control error. Measures of target tracking task performance included target acquisition time and error, time on target, X and Y axis tracking error, overshoots and control reversals. The results demonstrated that the force controller in combination with a step function was associated with a statistically significant increase in acquisition and tracking proficiency when compared to other controller/output function combinations.

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 15, 1974
Accession Number
ADA007384

Entities

People

  • James G. Curtin
  • James Mcguinness
  • Thomas G. Drennen

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Aircrafts
  • Displacement
  • Flight Simulators
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Simulators
  • Step Functions
  • Target Acquisition
  • Target Tracking
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Test And Evaluation

Readers

  • Aviation Science / Aeronautics.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Sensor Fusion and Tracking Systems.