Estimating Pilots' Cognitive Load From Ocular Parameters Through Simulation and In-Flight Studies.

Mohan Dilli Babu,Kamal Preet Singh Saluja,Pradipta Biswas,Gowdham Prabhakar,Abhay Pashilkar,D V Jeevithashree

doi:10.16910/jemr.12.3.3

Mohan Dilli Babu, Kamal Preet Singh Saluja + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.12.3.3

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Abstract

Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. This paper investigated use of eye gaze trackers in military aviation environment to automatically estimate pilot’s cognitive load from ocular parameters. In the first study, we used a fixed base variable stability flight simulator with longitudinal tracking task and collected data from 14 military pilots. In a second study, we undertook four test flights with BAES Hawk Trainer and Jaguar aircrafts doing air to ground attack training missions and constant G level turn maneuvers up to +5G. Our study found that ocular parameters like rate of fixation is significantly different in different flying conditions. It also significantly correlated with rate of descent during air to ground dive training task, normal load factor (G) of the aircraft during constant G level turn maneuvers and pilot’s control inceptor and tracking error in simulation tasks. Results from our studies can be used for real time estimation of pilots’ cognitive load, providing suitable warnings and alerts to the pilot in cockpit and training of military pilots on cognitive load management during operational missions.

Highlights

Aeronautical research came a long way from the days of the invention of aircraft to today’s fifth generation platforms
Saccadic intrusion: Saccadic intrusions (Abadi & Gowen, 2004) are conjugate, horizontal saccadic movements which tend to be three to four times larger than the physiological microsaccades and take the form of an initial fast eye movement away from the desired eye position, followed, after a variable duration, by either a return saccade or a drift (Abadi & Gowen, 2004). It is characterized by a type of eye gaze movement where eye gaze returned to same position between 60 and 870 milliseconds interval and maximum deviation of eye gaze within the interval is more than 0.4° in X-axis
Our study shows that existing Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) eye gaze trackers can be used to measure ocular parameters in high G environment and by measuring ocular parameters, in particular fixation rate, we can estimate pilots’ workload

Summary

Introduction

Aeronautical research came a long way from the days of the invention of aircraft to today’s fifth generation platforms. A fighter aircraft pilot has to undertake a plethora of tasks in addition to the primary. Received July 27, 2019; Published September 02, 2019. P. S., Pashilkar, A., & Biswas, P. (2019), Estimating pilots’ cognitive load from ocular parameters through simulation and inflight studies.

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