Perspective information in the cockpit to improve situational awareness

Three simulator experiments were carried out to quantify the potential benefits of perspective visual displays in the cockpit for situational awareness support of the pilot, in local guidance and global awareness tasks. In the first experiment, the application of an egocentric perspective display was investigated. Pilots had to perform a wingman task (local guidance task) and simultaneously detect geographical threat zones in the tactical environment (global awareness task).
The leading aircraft was visible in the out-of-the-cockpit scene whereas tactical information was presented on a Head-Down Display: a plan-view map display, or an egocentric perspective map display. Ta. Task performance was determined in terms of tracking accuracy (local guidance task performance) and threat-zone detection accuracy (global awareness task performance). The results of the first experiment indicate that neither of the display types significantly affected local guidance task performance. The global awareness task was best performed with the perspective map display.
However, it was argued that the perspective map display only partially represents the information surrounding the aircraft. In a second experiment, the application of exocentric perspective spherical radar displays was investigated. A target acquisition task was employed in which fighter pilots were required to locate and intercept a target aircraft that suddenly appeared at an arbitrary position at a predetermined distance from the pilot's aircraft (global awareness task). The pilots used a conventional plan-view radar display, or two types of perspective exocentric radar displays: with outside-in, ore-out motion reference.
Task performance was measured in terms of target acquisition time (global awareness task performance). The results of the second indicate that pilots were able to perform the target acquisition task much faster with a perspective radar display, irrespective of the initial target position. Specifically, with inside-out motion reference the acquisition time was reduced by nearly 50% as compared with the plan-view display.
The results of both experiments indicated that none of the used perspective display types supported local guidance as well as global awareness task performance. On the contrary, the optimal display information for each specific task differed in many aspects. Therefore, a third experiment was conducted where pilots had to perform both a local guidance and global awareness tasks, while using an adaptable tactical display which enabled the pilot to select the most optimal display type, from exocentric to egocentric. The results of this experiment revealed that pilots did not extensively use this option: they rarely adjusted the display to the flight phase they were actually executing.