Synthetic Vision Enhanced Surface Operations With Head-Worn Display for Commercial Aircraft

Efficiency and safety of airport surface operations can be enhanced by using synthetic vision and associated technologies, employed on a head-up display (HUD) combined with a head-down display electronic moving map. Past research has noted that 2 major limitations of HUDs during ground operations were its monochrome form and its limited, fixed field of regard. These limitations can be overcome with the use of a head-worn display (HWD). This article describes the results of a simulation experiment that showed that a fully integrated HWD concept provided significantly improved path performance compared to using paper charts alone. When comparing the HWD and HUD concepts, there were no differences found for path performance or subjective ratings of workload and marginally significant differences found for reported situation awareness and pilot comments of perceived system safety. Implications and directions for future research are described.