Pilot's Use of Heave Cues in a Pitch Control Task

Abstract

This paper reports on a pitch control experiment performed in the UTIAS Flight Research Simulator (FRS), investigating the effects of pitch and heave motion on pilot performance and control effort in a pitch attitude control task. Few pitch attitude control experiments have been reported that investigate the influence of heave and pitch motion on pitch control. Moreover, experimental results, as reported in literature, are in disagreement about the influence of heave motion on pitch control. In this paper, the preliminary results of the experiment are presented. Two types of heave motion cues are studied. The first is a linear function of pitch rate, representing heave acceleration as a result of aircraft lift, the second is a linear function of pitch acceleration, representing heave acceleration as a result of the rotating aircraft. A combined target tracking and disturbance rejection task was performed with a compensatory display. The dependent measure analysis shows a significant increase in performance when pitch motion is added. An improvement in performance is visible for heave motion, though it is not significant. No significant differences are found for the two types of heave motion. Further in-depth analysis is currently conducted, including pilot describing function analysis by identification, and pilot model analysis.