Accuracy and Similarity of Team Situation Awareness in Simulated Air Combat.

Fighter pilots' Team Situation Awareness (TSA) has been studied from the perspective of TSA accuracy, which represents how closely the pilots' collective knowledge is aligned with the real world. When TSA accuracy is low, the pilots can have similarly or dissimilarly inaccurate SA. The concept of TSA similarity represents the similarity of team members' collective knowledge.

Normative Performance Measurement in Simulated Air Combat.

Normative performance (NP) describes the pilots adherence to tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Until now, there has not been a global NP measurement technique for beyond visual range (BVR) air combat, and the methodology and technology related to the evaluation of NP have fallen behind the pace of the overall technical progress of distributed mission operations (DMO) training. Platform-independent core air combat tasks were identified.

Team situation awareness accuracy measurement technique for simulated air combat - Curvilinear relationship between awareness and performance.

A new technique for the assessment of Team Situation Awareness (TSA) accuracy based upon post task Critical Decision Method structured interviews was developed and tested using 39 combat-ready F/A-18 pilots. Pilots undertook a number of simulated air combat scenarios, flying in flights of four aircraft against a formation of enemy aircraft. Results showed a strong curvilinear relationship where high TSA accuracy resulted in higher performance in some areas of air combat, measured with friendly losses and kills.

Comparison of NASA-TLX scale, modified Cooper-Harper scale and mean inter-beat interval as measures of pilot mental workload during simulated flight tasks.

The sensitivity of NASA-TLX scale, modified Cooper-Harper (MCH) scale and the mean inter-beat interval (IBI) of successive heart beats, as measures of pilot mental workload (MWL), were evaluated in a flight training device (FTD). Operational F/A-18C pilots flew instrument approaches with varying task loads. Pilots' performance, subjective MWL ratings and IBI were measured.

Direct Least Square Fitting of Hyperellipsoids.

This paper presents two new computationally efficient direct methods for fitting n-dimensional ellipsoids to noisy data. They conduct the fitting by minimizing the algebraic distance in subject to suitable quadratic constraints. The hyperellipsoid-specific (HES) method is an elaboration of existing ellipse and 3D ellipsoid-specific fitting methods.

Fighter pilots' heart rate, heart rate variation and performance during instrument approaches.

Fighter pilots' heart rate (HR), heart rate variation (HRV) and performance during instrument approaches were examined. The subjects were required to fly instrument approaches in a high-fidelity simulator under various levels of task demand. The task demand was manipulated by increasing the load on the subjects by reducing the range at which they commenced the approach.

Fighter pilots' heart rate, heart rate variation and performance during an instrument flight rules proficiency test.

Increased task demand will increase the pilot mental workload (PMWL). When PMWL is increased, mental overload may occur resulting in degraded performance. During pilots' instrument flight rules (IFR) proficiency test, PMWL is typically not measured.