Choosing your Poison: Optimizing Simulator Visual System Selection as a Function of Operational Tasks

ABSTRACT
Although current technology simulator visual systems can achieve extremely realistic levels – they do not completely replicate the experience of a pilot sitting in the cockpit, looking at the outside world. Some differences in experience are due to visual artifacts, or perceptual features that would not be present in a naturally viewed scene. Others are due to features that are missing from the simulated scene. In this paper, these differences will be defined and discussed. The significance of these differences will be examined as a function of several particular operational tasks. A framework to facilitate the choice of visual system characteristics based on operational task requirements will be proposed.

VITA
Dr. Barbara Sweet works in the Human Systems Integration Division at NASA Ames Research Center. Since joining NASA in 1984, she has worked in helicopter handling-qualities research, simulation facility development and management, and human-factors research. Her research has focused on the use of visual cues to accomplish vehicular control (such as piloting an aircraft). This work has included the development of models of human control behavior that account for perspective scene viewing. From 2005 to 2012, Dr. Sweet was the NASA Lead Scientist on the Operational Based Vision Assessment program with the U.S. Air Force. Her current research is focused on visual and motion cueing in loss of control incidents, and the development of symbologies for obstacle avoidance during near-ground helicopter operations. Dr.Sweet received a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 1999, and B.S. and M.S. degrees in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University in 1982 and 1986, respectively. She is a member of the AIAA. She is also a pilot, with commercial ratings in both airplanes and helicopters, and formerly worked as a flight instructor and instrument flight instructor in airplanes.