Combination of Multiple Coding Parameters

Vibrotactile displays have been reported effective in enhancing awareness of flight 8 attitude for pilots and releasing other heavily loaded sensory channels. Although some work have 9 been done on vibrotactile coding of flight altitude, there is lack of a systematic investigation into 10 coding methods with combination of multiple coding parameters. In this paper, seven coding 11 methods with combinations of multiple coding parameters (location, rhythm, intensity, and mode) 12 were systematically studied to cue flight attitude for pilots with a vibrotactile vest. We conducted 13 two psychophysical experiments in a static tactile sensory environment in which the attitude 14 commands in the form of vibrotactile feedback are presented randomly, and quantitatively 15 evaluated the effectiveness of the vest according to the users’ recognition accuracy, reaction time 16 and information transfer rate. The results show that vibrotactile vest is effective to cue attitude 17 information. The preferred coding method with combinations of location, rhythm and mode 18 allowed users to perform with lowest reaction time and highest recognition accuracy and yield 19 about 255 bits/min of information transfer rate. Overall, the presented work provides valuable 20 insights and guidance for the design of haptic displays for vibrotactile aids for the pilots. 21