The Effects of Controlled Element Break Frequency on Pilot Dynamics During Compensatory Target-Following

Abstract

This paper describes the preliminary results of an experiment that was performed to study the effect of the break frequency of controlled element dynamics that are representative for conventional aileron-to-roll dynamics on manual control behavior during compensatory target-following. For frequencies below the break frequency ‐ which results from the roll subsidence eigenmode ‐ such aircraft roll dynamics typically approach those of a single integrator, while for higher frequencies t hey are approximately those of a double integrator. Previous tracking experiments with such controlled element dynamics have shown some results that disagree with the work of McRuer et al., who investigated manual control behavior for control of pure single and double integrator dynamics, most notably lower pilot-vehicle system crossover frequencies than would be expected. An experimental evaluation of aircraft roll dynamics with three different break frequencies, and pure single and double integrator dynamics for comparison, showed marked effects of controlled element dynamics on both tracking performance and manual control behavior. Tracking performance and crossover frequencies were found to consistently decrease with decreasing controlled element bandwidth. In addition, the two different forcing function signal bandwidths evaluated in the experiment, revealed further adaptation of human dynamics to the combination of controlled element and forcing function characteristics, of which part could not be explained by the available literature.