Aircraft Automation and Pilots.

Prevalence of Backache in Aircraft Pilots

General medical practitioners in the air force often find Backache (BA) an occupational sequel in pilots. BA is often due to prolonged sitting, ineffective lumbar support, poor posture, having to lean forward to reach for navigational buttons and vibrations that can produce disc damage via microtrauma [1]. It is difficult to make a clear association between the type of aircraft and BA [2]. Howe...

Risk Perception and Risk Tolerance in Aircraft Pilots

The optokinetic cervical reflex in pilots of high-performance aircraft.

BACKGROUND For over 60 yr, researchers and engineers have based investigations and the design of cockpit displays and structures upon the presupposition that during flight the pilot maintains a head alignment coincident with the aircraft's vertical axis (z-axis). Recent simulator studies have verified the existence of a pilot neck reflex which refutes this long-standing assumption. This reflex,...

Building Intelligent Pilots for Simulated Rotary Wing Aircraft

a typical scenario involving Soar-based RWA IPs. 1. Abstract There are two RWA in the scenario, just behind the The Soar/IFOR project has been developing ridge, indicated by the contour lines. The other intelligent pilot agents (henceforth IPs) for vehicles in the figure are a convoy of "enemy" participation in simulated battlefield environments. ground vehicles  tanks and anti-aircraft vehicl...

Automation for Nondestructive Inspection of Aircraft

We discuss the motivation and an architectural framework for using small mobile robots as automated aids to operators of nondestructive inspection (NDI) equipment. We review the need for aircraft skin inspection, and identify the constraints in commercial airlines operations that make small mobile robots the most attractive alternative for automated aids for NDI procedures. We describe the desi...