Training Pilots for Unexpected Events: A Simulator Study on the Advantage of Unpredictable and Variable Scenarios

Objective: This study tested whether simulator-based training of pilot responses to unexpected or novel events can be improved by including unpredictability and variability in training scenarios. Background: Current regulations allow for highly predictable and invariable training, which may not be sufficient to prepare pilots for unexpected...

Rigid-body kinematics versus flapping kinematics of a flapping wing micro air vehicle

Several formulations have been proposed to model the dynamics of ornithopters, with inconclusive results regarding the need for complex kinematic formulations. Furthermore, the impact of assumptions made in the collected results was never assessed by comparing simulations with real flight data. In this study two dynamic models of a Flapping Wing...

Identifying water mass depletion in northern Iraq observed by GRACE

Observations acquired by Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission indicate a mass loss of 146 ± 6 mm equivalent water height (EWH) in northern Iraq between 2007 and 2009. These data are used as an independent validation of lake mass variations and a rainfall-runoff model, which is based on local geology and climate conditions....

Identifying water mass depletion in Northern Iraq observed by GRACE

Observations acquired by Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission indicate a mass loss of 31 ± 3 km3 or 130 ± 14 mm in Northern Iraq between 2007 and 2009. This data is used as an independent validation of a hydrologic model of the region including lake mass variations. We developed a rainfall–runoff model for five tributaries of...

Online Aerodynamic Model Identification using a Recursive Sequential Method for Multivariate Splines

Avoiding high computational loads is essential to online aerodynamic model identi- fication algorithms, which are at the heart of any model-based adaptive flight control system. Multivariate simplex B-spline (MVSB) methods are excellent function approximation tools for modeling the nonlinear aerodynamics of high performance aircraft. However,...

Design of a Co-Planar Airborne Separation Display

This paper describes a concept for a coplanar airborne self-separation display, which is designed to aid pilots in their separation task, by visualizing the possibilities for conflict resolution that the airspace provides. This study is a part of an ongoing research toward the design of a constraint-based 3-D separation assistance interface that...

Experimental Evaluation of a Coplanar Airborne Separation Display

Two experiments, an active conflict resolution task and a passive situation awareness assessment, were conducted that compared two versions of a constraint-based coplanar airborne separation assistance display. A baseline display showed a maneuver space based on 2-D projections of traffic and performance constraints. A second augmented display...

A novel adaptive kernel method with kernel centers determined by a support vector regression approach

The optimality of the kernel number and kernel centers plays a significant role in determining the approximation power of nearly all kernel methods. However, the process of choosing optimal kernels is always formulated as a global optimization task, which is hard to accomplish. Recently, an algorithm, namely improved recursive reduced least...

Design of an Airborne Three-Dimensional Separation Assistance Display

In the context of the Next Generation Air Transportation System and Single European Sky ATM Research future airspace programs, this paper describes a concept for an airborne separation assurance display that is designed to aid pilots in their task of self-separation, by visualizing the possibilities for conflict resolution that the airspace...

Differential constraints for bounded recursive identification with multivariate splines

The ability to perform online model identification for nonlinear systems with unknown dynamics is essential to any adaptive model-based control system. In this paper, a new differential equality constrained recursive least squares estimator for multivariate simplex splines is presented that is able to perform online model identification and...

Robust flight control using incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion and angular acceleration prediction

This paper presents a flight control strategy based on nonlinear dynamic inversion. The approach presented, called incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion, uses properties of general mechanical systems and nonlinear dynamic inversion by feeding back angular accelerations. Theoretically, feedback of angular accelerations eliminates sensitivity to...

Haptic feedback; making safety boundaries tangible

Artificial Force Field for Haptic Feedback in UAV Teleoperation

The feedback upon which operators in teleoperation tasks base their control actions differs substantially from the feedback to the driver of a vehicle. On the one hand, there is often a lack of sensory information; on the other hand, there is additional status information presented via the visual channel. Haptic feedback could be used to unload...

A new approach to linear regression with multivariate splines

A new methodology for creating highly accurate, static nonlinear maps from scattered, multivariate data is presented. This new methodology uses the B-form polynomials of multivariate simplex splines in a new linear regression scheme. This allows the use of standard parameter estimation techniques for estimating the B-coefficients of the...

Modeling Human Multimodal Perception and Control Using Genetic Maximum Likelihood Estimation

This paper presents a new method for estimating the parameters of multi-channel pilot models that is based on maximum likelihood estimation. To cope with the inherent nonlinearity of this optimization problem, the gradient-based Gauss-Newton algorithm commonly used to optimize the likelihood function in terms of output error is complemented with...

Neural Network Output Optimization Using Interval Analysis

The problem of output optimization within a specified input space of neural networks (NNs) with fixed weights is discussed in this paper. The problem is (highly) nonlinear when nonlinear activation functions are used. This global optimization problem is encountered in the reinforcement learning (RL) community. Interval analysis is applied to...

Ecological Interface Design of a Tactical Airborne Separation Assistance Tool

In a free-flight airspace environment, pilots have more freedom to choose user-preferred trajectories. An onboard pilot support system is needed that exploits travel freedom while maintaining spatial separation with other traffic. Ecological interface design is used to design an interface tool that assists pilots with the tactical planning of...

Role Identification of Yaw and Sway Motion in Helicopter Yaw Control Tasks

A set of experiments has been conducted to investigate the relative effect of translational and rotational motion cues on pilot performance. Two helicopter yaw control tasks were performed on the SIMONA: a yaw capture task and a target-tracking task with simulated turbulence. The yaw capture task was a repetition of a task performed previously...