22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-6.9.3

PREDICTIVE FLIGHTPATH DISPLAYS FOR IMPROVED MANUAL CONTROL PERFORMANCE

E. Theunissen (1), U. Sennes (2), G. Sachs (2)
(1) Department of Electrical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; (2) Institute for Flight Mechanics and Flight Control, Munich University of Technology, Germany

Keywords: flightpath displays, predictor

A well designed perspective flight path display increases the pilot’s spatial awareness, and reduces the amount of effort needed to fly complex trajectories as compared to current flight director displays. Perspective flight path displays can be augmented with predictive symbology, which allows a further increase in tracking performance. Due to the difference between the optimal lateral and optimal vertical prediction time, a truly veridical predictor is not likely to be the optimal solution. Several approaches to the design of predictor algorithms and to compensate for the difference between the optimal lateral and vertical prediction time have been proposed in the past. This paper describes how the similarities between predictor and flight director algorithms can be exploited in the development of an optimal predictor algorithm.

view full paper