Usability of a Steering Wheel Control Concept for a Highly Augmented Personal Helicopter

Abstract

Recent developments in the sector of urban air mobility have also increased the interest in personal helicopters. Helicopters are typically controlled by center stick, collective lever and pedals, while sidesticks offer alternative arrangements. This paper reports on a third option: the control of a helicopter by steering wheel. The car-inspired steering wheel control concept prom-ises to be intuitively usable, especially for novice pilots with driving experience. The steering wheel replaces the center stick and the original yaw pedals are used for speed or acceleration commands. For altitude commands two different inceptors are proposed, either a conventional collective lever or rocker switches behind the steering wheel. Horizontal movements are commanded by an 8-way-switch on the wheel. In the paper both steering wheel configurations are compared to conventional helicopter controls in ground-based simulation. All investigated configurations received high usability ratings from the test group of helicopter pilots, while two groups of test candidates without flying experience gave better ratings for the control configurations with steering wheel compared to conventional helicopter controls.