Use of simulator motion feedback for different classes of vehicle dynamics in manual control tasks

Abstract

With the development of moving-based flight simulators in mind, a large number of researchers have considered human manual control behavior in tasks where the motion of the controlled vehicle can be felt by the pilots. While it is known that the dynamics of the controlled vehicle are a key factor that determines the usefulness of motion feedback, there is no systematic study of the use of motion feedback over a wide range of controlled dynamics. Therefore, this paper describes a human-in-the-loop yaw attitude compensatory tracking experiment that was conducted to evaluate the effects of motion feedback on task performance, as well as the open-loop crossover frequency and phase margin. A gain, a single integrator and a double integrator were selected as the different controlled elements in this experiment, respectively. For the double integrator controlled element, the results confirms the findings of previous studies that the motion feedback is crucial in improving task performance and increasing the open-loop phase margin for enhanced stability. However, for both the gain and single integrator controlled elements, the motion feedback is not helpful in the aspect of changing task performance, target crossover frequency and phase margin.