THE PROPOSED RESEARCH CONSTITUTES A FIRST STEP IN THE UTILIZATION OF ALPHATECH'S DISPLAY DESIGN METHODOLOGY TO DEVELOP IMPROVED DISPLAYSYSTEMS FOR AIR CREWS IN TERRAIN FOLLOWING FLIGHT.

THE PROPOSED RESEARCH CONSTITUTES A FIRST STEP IN THE UTILIZATION OF ALPHATECH'S DISPLAY DESIGN METHODOLOGY TO DEVELOP IMPROVED DISPLAYSYSTEMS FOR AIR CREWS IN TERRAIN FOLLOWING FLIGHT. IT INVOLVES AN ANALYTICAL EFFORT AT ALPHATECH, AND AN EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT. PILOT MODELING TECHNIQUES ARE CENTRAL TO OUR APPROACH FOR DISPLAY SYSTEM EVALUATION. A PILOT MODELING IS NEEDED TO GIVE PREDICTION OF CLOSED-LOOP PILOT/VEHICLE PERFORMANCE FOR A GIVEN WORKLOAD, AN TO RANK-ORDER THE USEFULNESS OF THE DISPLAYEDINFORMATION. OUR APPROACH, IN THE EVALUATION PROBLEM, IS TO EMPLOY THE OPTIMAL CONTROL MODEL (OCM) OF HUMAN RESPONSE. THE OCM COMPUTERBASED DISPLAY DESIGN PROCEDURE IS COMPRISED OF THREE LEVELS FOLLOWED BY MAN-IN-THE-LOOP EXPERIMENTATION. THESE LEVELS ARE: (1) INFORMATION LEVEL WHICH DETERMINES THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE SYSTEM VARIABLES IN THE PILOT VEHICLE-CONTROL TASK, (2) ELEMENT LEVEL IN WHICH THE INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS ARE INTEGRATED IN A FEASIBLE DISPLAY SYSTEM, AND (3) FORMAT LEVEL IN WHICH ACTUAL DISPLAY LAYOUT IS CONSTRUCTED.