Exploiting spatial audio cues for pilot navigation in degraded visual environments

Abstract

Aviation mishaps resulting from degraded visual environments (DVEs) represent a significant loss in military personnel and aircraft every year. DVEs are considered any type of environmental condition (e.g., sand, snow, or fog) that visually obstructs the pilot and can cause spatial disorientation. The current study represents a tri-service effort exploring the implementation of spatial audio cueing techniques to aid pilot navigation in DVEs. Directional cueing (i.e., indicating the location of target waypoints) was achieved by spatializing an auditory stimulus using the SoundLab audio rendering package and convolving audio signals with (non-individualized) head-related transfer functions. Two spatial cue conditions were tested, either rendered dynamically in reference to the pilot’s head via head tracking or with respect to aircraft heading. Data were collected from pilots operating a full-motion UH-60 Black Hawk flight simulator at the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory. Pilots performed multiple flight maneuvers, such as a “turn to target” localization task, a "side-step" maneuver positioning the aircraft over a stationary target, and an “approach to moving target” task. Performance was assessed by measures of localization error, completion time, and failure rate. Findings from this study provide information on sensory cueing display countermeasures for helicopter flight in DVEs.