A tactile control prosthesis
Description
This research involves development and testing of a tactile control prosthesis to aid human operators in control of dynamic vehicles. Specifically, this work includes development and demonstration of a torso mounted tactile drift display that allowed helicopter pilots to hover a Blackhawk helicopter with degraded vision (equivalent to 20/200 acuity), a NASA sponsored pilot-in-the-loop simulator study for a hover display and development and analysis of a tactile control prosthesis to help pilots correctly control an airplane experiencing an engine failure on takeoff. Results of a ten-subject experiment indicate that use of a tactile display in conjunction with a visual display reduces operator delay by 65 msec (SD of 28 msec), (P < 0.001) without a significant increase in error rate. In the pilot-in-the-loop simulation experiment pilots hovered a simulated helicopter better under increased workload conditions with the tactile control prosthesis than without it. The increased workload consisted of an addition drill in which the subject had to agree or disagree with a computer generated sum. Pilots were able to hover more precisely with the tactile display (mean of 5.19, SD of 2.57 feet) than without (mean of 6.39 and SD of 3.31 feet) especially when the secondary task was required (P < 0.001). Although learning effects were exhibited throughout the trials (P < 0.001), the tactile display was of greater benefit in higher workload conditions