Abstract
Several safety-related improvements are applied every year to try to minimize the total number of civil aviation accidents. Fortunately, these improvements work well, reducing the number of accident occurrences. However, while the number of accidents due to mechanical failures has decreased, the number of accidents due to human errors seems to grow. On that basis, this work presents a contribution regarding the brain’s β-band activities for different levels of volunteers’ expertise on flight simulator, i.e., experienced, mid-level and beginner, in which they acted as pilots in command during several simulated flights. Spectrogram analysis and statistical measurements of each volunteer’s brain’s β-band were carried out. These were based on seven flight tasks: takeoff, climb, cruise flight, descent, approach, final approach and landing. The results of the proposed experiment showed that the takeoff, approach and landing corresponded to the highest brain activities, i.e., close to 37.06–67.33% more than the brain activity of the other flight tasks: when some accidents were about to occur, the intensities of the brain activity were similar to those of the final approach task. When the volunteers’ expertise and confidence on flight simulation were considered, it was shown that the highest brain magnitudes and oscillations observed of more experienced and confident volunteers were on average close to 68.44% less, compared to less experienced and less confident volunteers. Moreover, more experienced and confident volunteers in general presented different patterns of brain activities compared to volunteers with less expertise or less familiarity with fight simulations and/or electronic games.
Highlights
The present research considers the analysis of the beta band, based on electroencephalography (EEG) data in the context of simulated flight, with several flight tasks
It considered airplanes that are heavier than 60,000 pounds maximum gross weight, showing a very clear statistical analysis of accidents, which it was possible to note the impressive evolution of aviation safety in recent years
Considering the simulation experiment and the acquired EEG data of the volunteers, the β-band analysis was carried out based on spectrogram analysis and statistical analysis of the brain activities, according to each proposed flight task
Summary
The present research considers the analysis of the beta band, based on electroencephalography (EEG) data in the context of simulated flight, with several flight tasks. Aviation accidents continue to occur, and together with these undesirable situations come the aviation safety’s improvements Some of these improvements were presented in the airline safety report on 6 April 2020 by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). It considered airplanes that are heavier than 60,000 pounds maximum gross weight, showing a very clear statistical analysis of accidents, which it was possible to note the impressive evolution of aviation safety in recent years. Despite these improvements, aviation accidents caused by human failure seem to be more recurrent compared to accidents due to mechanical failures [2,3]. Aviation has become safer every year, reaching lower levels of accidents, considering fatalities with hull losses or not
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