Pilot-Centered Design of a Longitudinal Acceleration Command System for Augmented Manual Flight Control (nx-Control)

日益增长的空中交通增加了飞行员在飞行控制方面的要求。预计将有比今天更精确的飞行更复杂的轨迹。在自动飞行的情况下，这将不是一个问题。但是，原则上增加的需求即使在手动飞行中也必须保持可达到的。这意味着与今天相比，由于更复杂的能量管理，飞行员的认知和运动负荷更高。迄今为止，手动控制推力和速度刹车（影响飞机总能量的因素）是基于所谓的俯仰和功率估计。在今天的驾驶舱中，没有对这项任务的支持。这与已经可用的用于控制飞机姿态的增强飞行控制系统形成对比。在项目的第一个阶段，研究了能量管理的需求和飞行员的认知过程。在此基础上，开发了一种新的纵向载荷因子飞行控制器（nxControl），通过在一个命令中结合能量的增加和减少元素来辅助飞行员。因此，控制器显著减少了飞行员在手动飞行中的认知和运动负荷。与此同时，一种新的控制杆和几项显示增强功能也被开发出来，以飞行员为中心的方法使系统的功能可视化，并使其操作尽可能直观。在飞行模拟器研究中，已经可以表明nxControl系统是可理解的，并且被飞行员很好地接受。此外，可以证明，与传统的手动飞行相比，今天的标准飞行任务可以用nxControl以更低的工作量和类似的精度进行管理。因此，第一个项目阶段的主要目标已经实现。项目第二阶段的目标是展示nxControl概念可以在整个飞行过程中连贯地集成到当今商用飞机的驾驶舱理念中。这将分三步完成。首先，根据飞行模式向地面模式过渡的要求，对系统进行扩展和完成。在地面模式下，新的控制器可以访问车轮制动器和推力反转器，以减少能量。其次，将在模拟器研究中调查该系统在能源相关故障（例如发动机故障）的情况下是否仍然可以运行，并仍然为飞行员提供有效的支持。根据结果，如有必要，将对系统进行进一步优化。第三，最终将证明，在新的系统下，同样复杂的未来飞行轨迹仍然可以在手动模式下以合理的精度和适度的工作量进行飞行。为此目的，包括控制器和新驾驶舱接口在内的综合系统将在有执照的航空公司飞行员的综合飞行模拟器研究中进行评估。

The growing air traffic increases the requirements on pilots with respect to flight control. It is expected that more complex trajectories are to be aviated with greater precision than today. This will not be a problem in case of automated flying. However, the increased requirements, in principle, must also remain achievable even in manual flight. This means higher cognitive and motoric workload of the pilots compared to today, due to more complex energy management. Thus far, the manual control of thrust and speed brakes, the elements that influence the airplane's total energy, is based on so called pitch-and-power estimations. In today's cockpits, there is no support for this task. This is in contrast to already available augmented flight control systems for controlling the aircraft's attitude. In the first project phase, the requirements resulting from the management of energies and the involved cognitive processes of pilots were investigated. On this basis a new flight controller for the longitudinal load factor was developed (nxControl) to assist the pilot by combining the energy increasing and decreasing elements in one command. Thereby, the controller significantly reduces the cognitive and motoric workload of pilots in manual flight. Parallel to this development, also a new control lever and several display enhancements were developed in a pilot-centered approach to visualize the functioning of the system and to make its operation as intuitive as possible. In a flight simulator study it could already be shown that the nxControl system is comprehensible and well accepted by the pilots. In addition, it could be proved that today's standard flight tasks can be managed with nxControl at a lower workload with similar precision, compared to conventional manual flight. Thus, the main goals of the first project phase have been achieved. The objective of the second project phase is to show that the nxControl concept can be integrated coherently into the existing cockpit philosophy of today's commercial aircraft for the entire flight from gate to gate. This will be done in three steps. First, the system will be expanded and completed according to the requirements of the transition from flight to ground mode. In ground mode the new controller can access wheel brakes and thrust reverser to reduce energy. Second, it will be investigated in a simulator study whether the system can still operate in case of energy-related failures (e.g. engine failure) and still provide effective support to the pilot. Based on the results, if necessary, the system will be further optimized. Third, it will finally be demonstrated that, given the new system, also complex future flight trajectories can still be aviated in manual mode with reasonable accuracy and moderate workload. For this purpose, the integrated system including the controller and new cockpit interfaces will be evaluated in a comprehensive flight simulator study with licensed airline pilots.