Understanding the use of automation in helicopters

Helicopters possess the unique capability of hovering stationary in the air and landing with relative ease in a variety of terrain, which sets them apart from fixed-wing aircraft. However, due to operations close to terrain and obstacles, piloting a helicopter can be a challenging task that involves risk of incidents and accidents. One avenue to...

Human-automation interaction for helicopter flight: Comparing two decision-support systems for navigation tasks

This paper investigates the effects of different automation design philosophies for a helicopter navigation task. A baseline navigation display is compared with two more advanced systems: an advisory display, which provides a discrete trajectory suggestion; and a constraint-based display, which provides information about the set of possible...