Innovative Methods for Correlating Physiological Measures of Pilot Workload to Handling Qualities

In 1969 George Cooper and Robert Harper published their seminal report on the use of pilot ratings in aircraft handling qualities evaluations that produced the pilot rating scale that remains in use today. The scale features key innovations that revolutionized handling qualities testing including the decision tree that guides pilots to the handling qualities level and the individual ratings that are a function of aircraft characteristics and pilot compensation. For the decades that followed, researchers have sought to correlate pilot compensation – as well as physical and mental workload – with the assigned rating, but a quantitative correlation between workload and handling qualities ratings remains elusive. In recent years, new measurement devices have been developed that together with software processing tools can provide accurate measures of psychophysiological measures including cognitive workload, distraction, and engagement based on electroencephalogram (EEG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) measures (i.e., brain waves and heart rate variability). Pilot compensation is also a function of task performance that reflects aircraft characteristics and inceptor activity that reflects upon physical workload. A team led by Systems Technology, Inc. proposes to develop the Pilot Assessment Scaling System that will embody these elements to characterize and ultimately predict Levels of Handling Qualities.