Loss-of-Control Mitigation via Predictive Cuing

Abstract

Flying near the edge of the safe operating envelope is an inherently unsafe proposition. The edge of the envelope here implies that small changes or disturbances in the system state or system dynamics can take the system out of the safe envelope in a short time and could result in loss-of-control events. This study evaluates approaches to pilot cueing based on predicting loss-of-control safety margins as the aircraft gets closer to the edge of the safe operating envelope. The goal is to provide the pilot aural, visual, and tactile cues focused on maintaining the pilot’s control action within predicted loss-of-control boundaries. The predictive architecture presented in this paper combines quantitative loss-of-control boundaries, an adaptive prediction, and data-based predictive control algorithms. The combined architecture is applied to a nonlinear transport-class aircraft. Evaluations of various loss-of-control cues using both test and commercial pilots in the NASA Ames Research Center’s vertical motion-base simulator were conducted in the summer of 2013. The paper presents details of the cueing algorithms and the results of the evaluation focused on effectiveness of these cues in preventing the pilots from entering a loss-of-control event.