Improved Human-Machine Interface for a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) Ground Control Station

From a human factors’ perspective, one of the main differences between controlling a Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), commonly referred to as drone, and piloting a traditional inhabited aircraft is the loss of much direct sensory feedback. It is posited that drone pilots’ situation awareness (SA), a key human factor in aviation
safety, is negatively impacted by the lack of physical cues normally available to conventional aircraft pilots. Most ground control stations (GCS) compensate for lost sensory cues by displaying them visually to the pilot, often in textual form. However, information overload and low SA can result from busy visual displays that are laden with
text. To address this problem, an initial GCS design will be developed using the principles of modern airliner flightdeck design. Afterward, this design will be tested by the partner’s experimental RPAS pilots and iteratively updated until satisfactory performance is attained

Faculty Supervisor:

Jeremy Laliberté

Student:

Partner:

Laflamme Aéro Inc

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Carleton University

Program: