Evaluation of DVE Landing Display Formats

Abstract

Within the recent years many different proposals have been published about the best design of display contents for helicopter pilot assistance during DVE landing. The guidance cues are typically shown as an overlay possibly on top of additional sensor or database imagery. This overlay represents the main information source for helicopter pilots for landing. Display technology within this field applies two different principles: Multicolor head-down display (panel mount), and monochrome head-up display (helmet-mounted). For both types the state-of-the-art imagery doesn’t make use of conformal symbol sets. They rather expose the pilots to mixed views (2D forward and bird’s eye view). Even so the trained pilots can easily interpret the presented data it doesn’t seem to be the best design for head-up displays. A study was realized to compare different proposed symbol sets (e.g. BOSS, DEVILA and JEDEYE). During approach and landing trials in our helicopter simulator these different formats were presented to the pilots on head-down and helmet-mounted displays. The evaluation of this study is based on measured flight guidance performance (objective measures) and on questionnaires (subjective measures). The results can pave the way for the planned development of a new conformal wide field of view perspective display for DVE landing assistance.