Are criteria for motion cueing and time delays possible?

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Introduction In spite off a continuing development of flight simulation over the past thirty years, there are still some areas where flight simulation is not a one to one replacement of real flight and can not completely fulfill the reasonable and objective requirements. To fulfill these needs, the proper feedback of effective motion cues seem to encounter two significant shortcomings, resulting from a lack of full understanding of (a) the impact of motion cueing on the pilot's behavior and (b) the requirements for motion cueing in the specific training application. During the past twenty years, research projects on pilot motion perception and manual control have been performed in the Netherlands at the Delft University of Technology, the National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR, and the TN0 Institute for Human Factors. The results have not only improved the knowledge on pilot's aircraft motion perception and control, but also initiated a reconsideration of motion feedback in flight simulation. Full flight simulation is meant to integrate the pilot's skill-based, rule-based and knowledge-based behavior in his control of the total aircraft system. Distinguishing the contribution of motion feedback to these three levels of behavior provides the tool to discriminate the impact of motion feedback on these levels of the resulting pilot behavior. Based on this discrimination, a review of motion system requirements, and washout filter design and optimization, subject to the training goal, becomes possible. The paper reviews the major results of the motion perception research, explains the discrimination of motion cues based on the three levels of behavior, and shows the impact on motion-base drive algorithm design. The significance of simulation-induced delays on compensatory manual control is shown, underscoring the value of such research in objectively defining future simulator requirements.