The Next Generation Cockpit: Requirements of Fighter Pilots in a Highly Automated Environment

Maximilian Weigand, Sarah Embacher

2024

Abstract

This study aims to explore the opinions of fighter pilots regarding past, current, and future Human-Machine-Interfaces. The first motivation of this study is to identify aspects of different interfaces within a fighter cockpit and the collaboration between unmanned platforms influencing the perceived performance of pilots. A second motivation is to create a list of requirements for future interface functionalities to narrow down the vast range of possible State-of-the-Art inventions to a few which, according to pilots, are of particularly good or bad use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed. For the analysis, a coding method was applied based on the ‘Mayring’-technique. Following this process, the raw data in form of interview transcripts were cleaned first and, subsequently, codes were created. From these codes, categories were defined and, on basis of the frequency of occurrence, main categories were filtered out. The main categories of this study are ‘Information sources’, ‘Risks of new technologies’, ‘Interaction with unmanned platforms’, and ‘Adaptive automation’. Some variation was found within the category of ‘Interaction with unmanned platforms’, these are mainly expressed through varying preferences of communication channels. The other three categories show a lot of similarities between opinions of pilots. Most relevant codes are concerned with over-engineering and the use of automation to appropriately support pilots in their tasks. In conclusion, this study provides a mostly clear picture of subjective opinions of pilots regarding modern cockpits and the application of new technological developments for the future, thereby providing valuable input for the requirements engineering of the next generation cockpit.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Weigand M. and Embacher S. (2024). The Next Generation Cockpit: Requirements of Fighter Pilots in a Highly Automated Environment. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Aircraft Systems - Volume 1: ICCAS; ISBN 978-989-758-724-5, SciTePress, pages 43-50. DOI: 10.5220/0012951900004562

in Bibtex Style

@conference{iccas24,
author={Maximilian Weigand and Sarah Embacher},
title={The Next Generation Cockpit: Requirements of Fighter Pilots in a Highly Automated Environment},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Aircraft Systems - Volume 1: ICCAS},
year={2024},
pages={43-50},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0012951900004562},
isbn={978-989-758-724-5},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Cognitive Aircraft Systems - Volume 1: ICCAS
TI - The Next Generation Cockpit: Requirements of Fighter Pilots in a Highly Automated Environment
SN - 978-989-758-724-5
AU - Weigand M.
AU - Embacher S.
PY - 2024
SP - 43
EP - 50
DO - 10.5220/0012951900004562
PB - SciTePress