The Effect of Field-of-View Size on Performance of a Simulated Air-to-Ground Night Attack,
Abstract
Five experienced fighter pilots flew a simulated. night attack, pop-up bomb delivery, with a flight simulator that had a head-mounted display. The mission was conducted with an aircraft-fixed forward looking infrared sensor (FLIR) or a head-steered FLIR. With the head-steered FLIR. the sensor image was viewed on a helmet-mounted display. whereas the aircraft-fixed FLIR was presented on a HUD. With both types of sensor. The FOV with which the subjects could see the outside world was varied from 20 to 80 degrees. The purpose of the experiment was to explore the mechanisms by which field-of-view (FOV) size may affect performance. and to provide data for the determination of the minimum FOV size for helmet-mounted displays (HMDs). With a head-steered sensor, subjects acquired the targets earlier in the mission (7.88 sec after pop-up vs 13.88 sec), and released their bomb at a higher altitude (1084 vs 902 ft). Increasing the size of the FOV also resulted in earlier target acquisition (7.05 sec with an 80 deg head-steered FOV. 9.55 sec with a 20 deg FOV). and higher altitude releases (1175 ft vs 843 ft). It is explained how early target acquisition allowed subjects to modify their flight paths and so position their aircraft for higher releases. Using the times to find targets as the criterion, HMD FOVs of 20 and 30 degrees were significantly worse (p<0.05) than FOVs of 40, 60 or 80 degrees.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADP006403
Entities
People
- Maxwell J. Wells
- Robert K. Osgood
Organizations
- Armstrong Laboratory