ABSTRACT

For more than three decades, aviation human factor researchers have analyzed the autoflight system interface (autopilot, autothrottle, flight management system) and articulated its flaws; the design issues are well known. More importantly, autoflight “mode confusion” has contributed to airplane accidents and incidents. A handful of design efforts have produced new interface designs that succeeded in removing or reducing pilot confusion and errors. Despite these efforts, interfaces on the most recent jet transports have changed little, and mode confusion continues to contribute to safety events. The failure to improve interface design is due to economic factors, such as maintaining common type ratings, and reducing certification risk and training costs. This paper reviews previous re-designs as the primary input to a proposed design for an “interpreter” display. The proposed display, implemented as a retrofitted supplementary display, depicts actual autoflight system behavior – What’s it doing now? What will it do next? – in a simple, graphical format. This paper describes the foundational design principles underlying this new display and initial display evaluation work.

摘要

三十多年来，航空人为因素研究人员分析了自动飞行系统的界面（自动驾驶，自动油门，飞行管理系统）并指出了其缺陷。设计问题是众所周知的。更重要的是，自动飞行的“模式混乱”导致了飞机事故和事故征候。少量的设计工作已经产生了新的接口设计，这些接口设计成功消除或减少了飞行员的困惑和错误。尽管做出了这些努力，但最新的喷气运输机上的接口变化不大，并且模式混乱继续助长安全事件。无法改进接口设计是由于经济因素造成的，例如保持通用类型等级以及降低认证风险和培训成本。本文回顾了以前的重新设计，将其作为“解释器”显示器的拟议设计的主要输入。拟议中的显示器是经过改装的辅助显示器，它描述了自动飞行系统的实际行为–它现在在做什么？接下来会做什么？–以简单的图形格式。本文介绍了此新显示器和初始显示器评估工作所基于的基本设计原理。