Rotorcraft Adaptive Tactical Information Display (RATID)

"Advances in aircraft and weapon capabilities have led to a dramatic increase in the tempo of tactical situations facing the combat rotorcraft pilot, reducing the pilot's available processing and decision time. Furthermore, technological advances in cockpitdisplays, sensors, and communications have resulted in an explosion in the quantity and complexity of information available to the pilot. These factors make it increasingly difficult for pilots to effectively use available information; there is too muchdata and too little time. Poorly designed displays can further exacerbate the problem through excessive labeling, little to no context information, and overcrowding, forcing the pilot to spend additional time on display interpretation. We propose todemonstrate the feasibility of developing a rotorcraft adaptive tactical information display (RATID) for pilots in the digital battlefield. RATID will provide: 1) an automatically generated high-level assessment of the current battlefield and missionsituation, based on disparate data sources already available from the helicopter avionics; and 2) a situation-adaptive interface based on this assessment, giving the pilot quick and intuitive access to tactically relevant data. Our approach will supportpilot situation awareness (SA) and enhanced performance through intelligent management of tactical display symbology, content, and format. In addition to the system's direct applicability to helic