Evaluation of Computer-Based Situation Awareness Training for General Aviation Pilots

Maintenance of situation awareness is of critical importance for the safe and productive execution of mobile field work. However, there is scarcity of research considering maintenance of situation awareness in mobile field work settings. The case study analyses information interaction as a means to maintain situation awareness. The empirical data for the study were collected from security service personnel participating in a pilot of guarding service based on NFC (near field communication) technology. NFC enables ubiquitous and location- and context-aware computing. Interviews, on-site observation and a questionnaire were conducted to define situation awareness requirements and to assess both current user experiences and future scenarios of NFC-based information support for security service work. Results of the study show that information interaction challenges were related to non-value-adding information activities when trying maintain situation awareness. Challenges were related to disturbances in information flow between clients, security service back office and field. It was found that maintaining situation awareness in circuit guarding was more challenging than in local guarding. Future NFC functionalities providing information support in particular for maintenance of short-term situation awareness were assessed as promising.

The purpose of this article is to propose a View Sharing Augmented Reality (AR) interface aimed at improving situation awareness (SA) during military operations. Battlefield Augmented Reality System (BARS), a mobile AR system, supports real-time battlefield situation awareness (SA) for mission execution through collaborative information sharing. Video-based View Sharing AR interface that provides the perspective of team members located remotely can enhance team-level SA. However, instances have been identified where providing the perspective of team members moving in directions different from the user’s path can lead to user confusion and have a negative impact on mission execution. In this study, we investigate the influence on SA when presenting the perspective of team members with different path direction through a View Sharing AR interface and to examine the impact of visual AR cues supporting spatial awareness on SA improvement. The study was designed to experience the View Sharing AR interface in a virtual reality (VR) environment using the Unity3D game engine. The experiments involved performing tasks to suppress enemies with three different path direction variances in perspective provision and receiving support from four visual AR cues. SA was measured through SA Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and Performance measurement. The research findings indicate that differences in path direction negatively affected SA, with the lowest SA observed when the path difference was 90°. Furthermore, visual AR cues, when providing Tramline cues, demonstrated the highest SA, showing interaction effects with path direction differences.

IntroductionEmpirical data on the effectiveness of BRM trainings is still sparse and as far as studies were published, not very encouraging. Both O’Connor (2011) and Rottger, Vetter & Kowalski (201...

To assess team situation awareness in an aviation maintenance setting, a methodology was developed for examining situation awareness requirements that incorporates both individual and team situation awareness perspectives. In the present study, inquires were conducted in the field maintenance setting at a major airline. Contextual inquires were combined with a goal directed task analysis to specify the situation awareness requirements involved in each of the interactions (between and within teams) required to perform maintenance tasks. Situation awareness requirements in a team context are discussed along with recommendations for training programs directed at improving situation awareness with and between teams.

Visual signals that integrate situation awareness (SA) information can improve drivers’ performance when assuming control of a partially automated vehicle from a non-driving task. By incorporating information that follows the levels of model of SA, these signals enable drivers to more quickly attain higher levels of SA, potentially bypassing traditional sequential processing stages. We evaluated the effectiveness of such SA-enhanced signals (displayed in the instrument cluster) in a simulated driving study by measuring takeover times and collision occurrences. The results indicate that incorporating SA information about the environment significantly reduces the time needed for drivers to take control of the vehicle and results in fewer collisions. Considering these performance differences suggests insights on optimizing visual cues to quickly restore SA among drivers as they transition from non-driving activities to manual control in partially automated vehicles.

Assessing pilot trainees’ Situation Awareness (SA) is critical for aviation safety and efficiency. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of three distinct eye-tracking metrics, gaze-based metrics, gaze patterns, and gaze entropy, in measuring the SA levels of pilot trainees. A between-subject experiment compared two trainee groups: one received standard training, and the other received training enhanced with vibrotactile feedback. Participants’ eye movements were recorded using wearable eye-tracking glasses before and after training. The experimental group showed improved flight performance, advanced gaze-based metrics, more organized gaze patterns, and increased gaze entropy. These results demonstrate that eye-tracking metrics can effectively reflect SA changes, with gaze entropy significantly correlating with SA measurements and indicating higher SA levels. The study highlights the feasibility of using eye-tracking to evaluate SA in pilot training. Future research should explore varied task complexities and extended training durations to validate these findings and assess long-term impacts.

Human Requirements Validation for Complex Systems Design

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (RAMIS) is gaining widespread adoption in many surgical specialties, despite the lack of a standardized training curriculum. Current training approaches rely heavily on virtual reality simulators, in particular for basic psychomotor and visuomotor skill development. It is not clear, however, whether training in virtual reality is equivalent to inanimate model training. In this manuscript, we seek to compare virtual reality training to inanimate model training, with regard to skill learning and skill transfer. Using a custom-developed needle-driving training task with inanimate and virtual analogs, we investigated the extent to which N=18 participants improved their skill on a given platform post-training, and transferred that skill to the opposite platform. Results indicate that the two approaches are not equivalent, with more salient skill transfer after inanimate training than virtual training. These findings support the claim that training with real physical models is the gold standard, and suggest more inanimate model training be incorporated into training curricula for early psychomotor skill development.

This umbrella review provides a thorough synthesis of evidence on the impact of virtual reality on three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor), informed by Bloom’s Taxonomy. Content analysis was applied to 93 articles comprising 70 systematic reviews, 17 systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and 6 meta-analyses, extracted from three databases (i.e., Web of Science, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore). The results indicated that affective learning in VR was most widely reported, followed by cognitive and psychomotor domains of learning. In the cognitive domain, VR showed more consistent benefits, especially for knowledge acquisition and higher-order cognitive skills (e.g., problem-solving, intellectual skills), although a few meta-analyses reported non-significant effects. Across the affective domain, findings were mixed but generally suggested VR could improve self-efficacy, self-confidence, and satisfaction, while evidence for various affective outcomes remained highly inconsistent. For the psychomotor domain, VR often enhanced motor, procedural, and safety-related skills, but results specifically for complex clinical skills were inconclusive. Future research should advance theory through exploring why and how VR influences learning while strengthening research designs and standardized measurements to determine under what conditions VR produces reliable improvements.

Recent studies in interface-mediated situation awareness claim that an ecological approach to interface design can be a good foundation to support successful decision-making, even in unanticipated situations. It is also claimed to serve well as a teaching tool that can promote a deeper understanding of the work domain dynamics. Although previous studies in pilot terrain and traffic awareness support these claims, the results of pilot-in-the-loop evaluations did not always reveal that t he improved situation awareness and decision-making could be fully attributed to the ecological interfaces. The experiment designs compared them to conventional pilot interfaces, which were not always designed for the same purpose. In this paper an extensive pilot-in-theloop experimental evaluation of an Ecological Synthetic Vision Display, described in the companion paper, will be presented that aims to make fair comparisons with respect to a viable design alternative. Furthermore, it also aims to test the above-mentioned claims. The pilot-in-the-loop experiment, using sixteen glass-cockpit pilots in a fixed-based flight simulator, showed that the ecol ogical overlays indeed improved the overall pilot terrain awareness and decision-making in unanticipated events as compared to a command-based interface counterpart. The utility of the energy angle was found to be most important for recognizing off-normal events. However, for short-term collision avoidance, flight safety in terms of low altitude flying, and pilot workload the results are in favor of the command display. Despite these results, none of the pilots crashed when using the ecological display and the majority of them preferred it.

The sense of touch as a man-machine communication channel can be as acute as the sense of sight and sound. In some scenarios such as those seen in aerobatics, stunt flying, and combat flights, tactile sensors can even outperform the conventional non-contact sensors in terms of situation awareness. Fusion of tactile sensory information with those obtained via sight and sound can avoid diverting the user’s attention away from the operational task at hand as well. In this study, the performance of an operator, to servo control the motion of a 2-dof model helicopter with pitch/yaw maneuverability, subjected to an intuitive body-referenced arrangement of a cluster of vibro-tactile sensors is investigated. A blindfolded operator will then control the helicopter to a safe attraction zone via a joystick based on this tactile sensory information. A fine-tuned local controller would take over for the end-of-motion precise homing. This study can pave the way towards a systematic integration and characterization of tactile sensors in high performance weapon platforms with improved situation awareness in visually awkward maneuvers such as those seen in aerial combat scenarios.

Facing flight centred air traffic control (ATC) and more monitoring tasks at future controller working positions (CWP), it becomes even more important that air traffic controllers (ATCo) always focus their attention at the relevant spots on their human machine interface (HMI). This paper outlines relevant literature about attention and attention guidance (AG) in different domains, explains the concept for an AG prototype for sectorless air traffic management (ATM) and the plan for its validation in the course of Single European Sky ATM Research (PJ.16-04-03, SESAR2020). The AG prototype considers three aspects. First, the desired area of attention: An assistance system calculates where the ATCo should look at depending on input data like radar and flight plan data. Second, an external system relying on eye tracking and user inputs determines where the current ATCo focus is. Third, if the desired and the actual area of attention are not the same, mechanisms to guide the ATCo’s attention will be triggered taking a strategy of escalating visual cues into account. The latter comprises an intelligent display of action indicators with respect to time, position and appearance as well as pre-tactical inattention indicators. The AG prototype aims to increase controller productivity, improve situation awareness as well as reduce workload and stress level in a future flight centred ATC environment.

Emergency response teams must coordinate their actions and goals in dynamic and demanding situations to ensure patient health and safety. It is a major challenge to measure and model such dynamic phenomenon under real world conditions. However, measuring coordination in real world conditions is necessary to better understand how teams function and to enhance their individual situation awareness, coordination, and learning. The use of sensor-based and video-based behavioral measurement of coordination within and between teams has been a suggested method for continuously recording dynamic, physical behavioral data streams related to proximity, movement or positioning to inform the team. However, very few studies have attempted to implement unobtrusive sensor-based data collection, especially in messy and challenging conditions. If we are to truly embrace the dynamic and complex nature of team-based behaviors and learning with new forms of data collection such as unobtrusive sensors, digital video and audio, we need to better understand the reality of the difficulties of collecting, processing and integrating these multiple digital data streams in real time to generate meaning in demanding, continually evolving, real world contexts such as emergency response. In the current paper, we strive to advance our understanding of the ground truth of leveraging sensor-based and other digital data streams to identify valid constructs, uncover meaningful indicators, and target relevant combinations of digital data streams to visualize and improve understanding of how teams coordinate and learn in team environments.

Anaesthetic information displays have been shown to influence anaesthesiologists’ situation awareness. In study 1 an object display was compared with the traditional display currently used. Twelve anaesthesiologists (residents and faculty members) participated in a simulator evaluation of the displays. Reaction times for detection of critical events and situation awareness were measured. The object display improved situation awareness for one of four test scenarios. Low-level situation awareness was higher with the traditional display, and medium-level situation awareness was higher with the new display. In study 2, an integrated 3D display was compared to the traditional display. Twelve students participated in the evaluation. The new 3D display helped the observers to see changes more rapidly. In one scenario, situation awareness was higher with the new display than with the traditional display. In summary, during 63% of the simulated scenarios, reliable differences were found in favour of the new displays. Thus, by introducing integrated graphical displays in the operating room, anaesthesiologists’ performance may be improved.

Training outside of the operating room improves intern resident psychomotor skills on a validated ASSH tool.