Advancing aviation safety through machine learning and psychophysiological data: a systematic review

In the aviation industry, safety remains vital, often compromised by pilot errors attributed to factors such as workload, fatigue, stress, and emotional disturbances. To address these challenges, recent research has increasingly leveraged psychophysiological data and machine learning techniques, offering the potential to enhance safety by understanding pilot behavior. This systematic literature review rigorously follows a widely accepted methodology, scrutinizing 80 peer-reviewed studies out of 3352 studies from five key electronic databases. The paper focuses on behavioral aspects, data types, preprocessing techniques, machine learning models, and performance metrics used in existing studies. It reveals that the majority of research disproportionately concentrates on workload and fatigue, leaving behavioral aspects like emotional responses and attention dynamics less explored. Machine learning models such as tree-based and support vector machines are most commonly employed, but the utilization of advanced techniques like deep learning remains limited. Traditional preprocessing techniques dominate the landscape, urging the need for advanced methods. Data imbalance and its impact on model performance is identified as a critical, under-researched area. The review uncovers significant methodological gaps, including the unexplored influence of preprocessing on model efficacy, lack of diversification in data collection environments, and limited focus on model explainability. The paper concludes by advocating for targeted future research to address these gaps, thereby promoting both methodological innovation and a more comprehensive understanding of pilot behavior.