Browsing by Author "Korek, Wojciech Tomasz"
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Item Open Access Assessments on human-computer interaction using touchscreen as control inputs in flight operations(Springer, 2022-06-16) Li, Wen-Chin; Liang, Yung-Hsiang; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Lin, John J. H.The developing technology on innovative touchscreen applied in the cockpit can integrate control inputs and outputs on the same display in flight operations. Flight systems could be updated by modifying the touchscreen user interface without the complicated processes on reconfiguring cockpit panels. There is a potential risk on touchscreen components constrained by the issues associated with inadvertent touch, which may be defined as any system detectable touch issued to the touch sensors without the pilot’s operational consent. Pilots’ visual behaviours can be explored by using eye trackers to analyze the relationship between eye scan patterns and attention shifts while conducting monitoring tasks in flight operations. This research aims to evaluate human-computer interactions using eye tracker to investigate the safety concerns on implementation of touchscreen in flight operations. The scenario was set to conduct an instrument landing on the final approach using future system simulator. Participants were required to interact with all the control surfaces and checklists using the touchscreens located on different areas in the cockpit. Each participant performed landing scenario as pilot-flying (PF) and pilot-monitoring (PM) in random sequence. Currently PF and PM perform different tasks related to control inputs and control outputs monitoring in the flight deck. The PF’s primary obligation is to fly the aircraft’s flight path, and the PM’s main responsibility is to monitor the aircraft’s flight path and cross-check to the PF’s operational behaviours. By analyzing participants’ visual behaviours and scanning patterns, the findings on HCI related to applying touchscreen for future flight deck design would be applicable. There are some benefits on the implementation touchscreen for future flight deck design if the human-centred design principle can be integrated in the early stage.Item Open Access Future flight deck design: developing an innovative touchscreen inceptor combined with the primary flight display(Elsevier, 2024-04-27) Wang, Yifan; Li, Wen-Chin; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Braithwaite, GrahamThe touchscreen has the potential to optimize the space usage and efficiency of the flight deck. Currently, touchscreens can combine the input and output functions of different systems. However, it does not yet serve as an inceptor to replace the sidestick or control column for aircraft manoeuvres. This study aims to examine the potential of a touchscreen as a flight inceptor compared with a traditional sidestick and gamepad. This research recruited 72 participants who interacted with three inceptors for both an instrument landing with disturbance and without disturbance using the Future System Simulator. The findings demonstrated that pilot performance, system usability and pilots’ situation awareness of touchscreen inceptors were significantly inferior to those of traditional sidesticks and gamepads. Compared to the sidestick and gamepad, the touchscreen provided a poorer situation awareness with the highest supply and demand. In addition, the performance of all inceptors was significantly influenced by disturbance. There is still a long way to go for certification of a touchscreen as an inceptor on the future flight deck. This research showed that even though the touchscreen inceptor scored the lowest on both SUS and SART, the majority of pilots agreed that the touchscreen inceptor provided a better attentional supply in challenging disturbance circumstances, providing proof of concept for its possible inclusion in flight deck design. There is a potential that the emerging touchscreen as an inceptor may develop further along with human-system integration flight deck design.Item Open Access Investigating pilots’ operational behaviours while interacting with different types of inceptors(Springer, 2022-06-16) Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Li, Wen-Chin; Lu, Linghai; Lone, MudassirThere are different designs of inceptors applied in the modern flight deck. How do pilots define how to precisely control the aircraft as their intention? Ten pilots have been asked to take part in the flight simulation trials. They were given tasks to execute using sidestick, Xbox gamepad and touchscreen controller and provide feedback using the System Usability Scale. The aim was to investigate the feasibility of replacing conventional inceptors in aircraft. The results have shown that there is a potential in introducing alternate Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) methods in the flight deck, especially in terms of learnability, however there is still a lot of work before it happens. This paper summarises the ‘pilot study’ results and shows the potential for further research.Item Open Access Pilots' perceived workload and flight performance while interacting with touchscreen inceptor during instrument landings(IEEE, 2023-11-10) Zhang, Jingyi; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Li, Wen-ChinIn this study, to dig into the further potential application of the touchscreen in flight operation, an integrated touchscreen system as the aircraft control inceptor was innovatively proposed. The touchscreen inceptor is integrated into the middle of the primary flight display allowing pilots to control the aircraft's movement horizontally (roll) and vertically (pitch) with their fingers. Fifty-six participants (23 pilots and 33 non-pilots) joined the Future Systems Simulator trail to perform instrument landings using the touchscreen and sidestick in conditions without and with simulated turbulence in vertical and horizontal channels. The heart rate variability reflecting the perceived workload was measured using the Inner Balance device. The flight data related to the flight path, touchdown location, and landing load were collected and calculated as the performance score. The three-way analysis of variance was applied to compare the perceived workload and flight performance between touchscreen and sidestick controllers in different disturbance conditions among pilots and nonpilots. The data analysis results indicated that in the scenario of landing with the disturbance, participants' heart rate variability was improved while interacting with the touchscreen inceptor compared to the sidestick. The flight performance of nonpilots while performing landing tasks with sidestick was significantly lower than pilots. Nevertheless, no significant difference in flight performance was found between nonpilots and pilots when using the touchscreen inceptor. The empirical study indicated that the touchscreen could provide a more intuitive interaction of a ‘point-where-you-want-to-go' control technique without the additional input device of sidestick to reduce the mental workload and cognitive stress. Furthermore, there is an evident decrease in performance score with the touchscreen inceptor compared to traditional sidestick due to the unfamiliarity of the touchscreen interactive mode in the prolonged aircraft control process. However, it is notable that nonpilots showed an equal level of flight performance with pilots in landing tasks with touchscreen control, revealing a quick-adapt interactive mode of touchscreen inceptor for novices to perform flight operations. Therefore, the training duration can be remarkably shortened for next-generation pilots, and the cost-efficiency can be improved as well.Item Open Access Subjective measures on task complexity using touchscreens in flight operations(Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, 2024-04-24) Wright, Ben; Blundell, James; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Li, Wen-ChinThe following preliminary study uses subjective measures of situational awareness, workload, and system usability to assess the effect of touchscreen flight deck displays in simple and complex flying environments during a simulated flight task. Eighteen participants were evaluated whilst flying a simulated aircraft, conducting both simple and complex flight operations. Results showed that situational awareness improved, and perceived workload was maintained, when task complexity was increased during touchscreen interaction on the flight deck. This was likely driven by touchscreens providing increased attentional supply. This improves the flight deck human-machine interface (HMI) from a pilot-centred perspective by improving access to task-relevant information. There was no significant change in levels of touchscreen usability as flight task complexity increased, once again ratifying the use of touchscreens in assisting cognitive function in some task types. The application and limitations of these findings is discussed.Item Open Access To be or not to be? Assessment on using touchscreen as inceptor in flight operation(Elsevier, 2022-12-09) Li, Wen-Chin; Wang, Yifan; Korek, Wojciech TomaszIntroduction. The innovative concept on applying touchscreen controls on the flight deck design had been discussed for a long time. However, there are some potential risks on touchscreen applications constrained by the issues associated with turbulence and pilots’ inadvertent activation. Research questions. This research aims to evaluate human-computer interactions and handling quality using touchscreens as inceptor in flight operations. Method. The scenario was set to conduct an instrument landing on the final approach using Future System Simulator (FSS). There are 8 commercial pilots (flight hours M = 4475.0, SD = 2742.1) using three different inceptors including traditional sidestick, touchscreen and gamepad for ILS landing. Results. There was a significant difference among three inceptors on handling quality in both landing without turbulence (F (2,14) = 6.25, p =.01, ηp2 = .47) and landing with turbulence (F (2,14) = 3.93, p =.04, ηp2 = .36) scenarios. Furthermore, post Hoc comparisons revealed that the handling quality of touchscreen was significantly lower than sidestick and gamepad. Discussion. By analyzing participants’ empirical experiences, the touchscreen inceptor was rated as the lowest handling quality among three inceptors due to the novel and lack of practice effects in flight operations. However, there is a potential on the information supply for touchscreen inceptor based on pilots’ feedbacks. Conclusion. Touchscreens provide numerous benefits for making flight decks simpler, but the usage as an inceptor is still in its infancy and there are still lots of problems that need to be fixed. Future Systems Simulator (FSS) is a highly reconfigurable modular flight simulator that allows pilots/researchers to explore the potential on future flight decks design for single pilot operations. There are some potential benefits on the implementation touchscreen inceptor for future flight deck design if the human-centred design principle can be integrated in the early stage.Item Open Access Touchscreen controls for future flight deck design: investigating visual parameters on human-computer interactions between pilot flying and pilot monitoring(Aeronautical and Astronautical Society of the Republic of China, 2023-01-29) Li, Wen-Chin; Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Liang, Yung-Hsiang; Lin, John J. H.This study is concentrated on investigating the different visual behaviors and HCI patterns between pilot flying and pilot monitoring while interacting with touchscreen controls on the flight deck. Twelve participants with flight experiences (M=1150, SD=4019.9) attended this research. The apparatus included Future Systems Simulator (FSS), eye tracker, and system usability scale (SUS). The designated scenario in the experiment was an instrument landing. All participants were required to perform two instrument landings in two different roles, pilot flying (PF) and pilot monitoring (PM). The order of role of randomized to eliminate practice effects. The results revealed that fixation counts of pilot flying were different among four AOIs, F (3, 9) = 10.58, p = .003, η_p^2 = .78. On the other hand, the FC of pilot monitoring demonstrated a significant difference among four AOIs, F (3, 8) = 8.69, p = .007, η_p^2 = .77. There was a significant difference between PF and PM on the subjective assessment of SUS total score, t (11) =3.85, p = 0.003, Cohen's d= 1.11. The application of a touchscreen can integrate input and output in the same area for visual feedback. There is a rising need to simplify the future flight deck design based on the principle of human-centered design. Conclusion: The application of touchscreen flight controls may have the potential to facilitate single-pilot operations flight deck design in the future. TSCs considerations must be consistent with human information processing and pilots' operational characteristics on the future flight deck.Item Open Access Understanding human behaviour in flight operation using eye-tracking technology(Springer, 2020-07-10) Korek, Wojciech Tomasz; Mendez, Arthur P.; Asad, Hafiz Ul; Li, Wen-Chin; Lone, MudassirA clear understanding of how the pilot processes the information in the cockpit while carrying out particular tasks is crucial for developing the Human-Machine Interface and inceptors that help reduce pilot workload. Eye-tracking data synchronised with aircraft dynamics data is used here to study the high-workload scenario of executing an offset landing in an engineering flight simulator. The study focused on identifying differences in behavioural patterns between line pilots and test pilots. Evidence for significant differences were found regarding the ability to multitask and monitor aircraft states. The research output will lead to reduction of the pilot’s workload and, in further study, proposition of a new display setups and inceptors.