Human factors evaluation of tangible devices for airplane cockpit

Abstract

In airliner cockpits, pilots interact with aircraft systems via specialized interfaces, grouped into functional units and displayed on different screens dedicated to each of the crew’s main activities. They operate these systems and digital displays with physical controllers: buttons, switches, pulls, joysticks… (Vinot et al. 2016). Recently, many aircraft manufacturers and suppliers have proposed innovative cockpit concepts based on the use of touch screens (Alapetite et al. 2012). The touch cockpit concept allows manufacturers to offer high-performance, adaptive (to the flight context and the new needs of air transport), and generic product lines to address civil or military avionics. However, contrary to current physical interactors, whose perception and manipulation are also promoted via the sense of touch and proprioception, the touchscreen interfaces suffer severe limitations in operational settings: they place a high demand on the visual channel to adjust the actions, thus eyes- free interaction is nearly impossible [ 8]; they are extremely complex to use during turbulent conditions (Cockburn et al. 2017); perception of the information can be difficult because the screen can get dirty or because of the presence of smoke in the cockpit (Vinot et al. 2016); and their usability is markedly reduced by stress or cognitive overload (Boy 2012). A possible avenue to improve the safety and efficiency of touch-based interaction in the cockpit can be to combine the advantages of touchscreen interfaces and physical controllers into tangible devices (Del Castillo and Couture 2016).