A Cognitive Study of Multicolour Coding for the Head-up Display (HUD) of Fighter Aircraft in Multiple Flight Environments

Abstract

By analyzing flight environments and HUD key information of fighter combat mission, based on the theory of color psychology and the regulation of the avionics system, this study simplified 10 kinds of typical flight environments and combined with 7 types of key information colors into 70 color schemes. Taking reaction accuracy and reaction time as performance indicators and testing participants’ subjective feelings, to evaluate pilots’ recognition ability of key information and general information with different color schemes in different flight environments, so as to provide the scientific basis for information coding design of flight HUD. The experimental results showed that the cognitive performance of the bicolor coding is significantly better than that of the monochrome coding by comparing the mean reaction time in various environments, and the cognitive performance of color schemes with the hue of 320 or 340 was better than that of other color schemes in most environments.