Situation Awareness Modeling and Pilot State Estimation for Tactical Cockpit Interfaces

This paper desribes a study that assessed the feasibility of developing an adaptive pilot/vehicle interface (PVI) prototype that uses measures of pilot workload and computational situation assessment models to drive the content, format, and modality of military cockpit displays. The system architecture consists of three distinct modules: 1) an on-line situation assessor that generates a “picture” of the tactical situation; 2) a pilot state estimator module that uses physiological signals and other measures to estimate pilot workload; and 3) a PVI adaptation module, which uses the assessed situation to determine the pilot’s information requirements, and the pilot state estimate to determine the most appropriate modality and format for conveying that information. The prototype display is being integrated with the Synthetic Immersion Research Environments (SIRE) simulator at the Armstrong Laboratory of Wright Patterson Air Force Base.