Intuitiva gränssnitt - Slutrapport

The present report provides a summary of the activities performed in the research project "Intuitive Interfaces" during 2012-204. The report opens with a general overview of the brownout problem and relevant display research. The main part of the report contains description and results of performed experiments. This is followed by general guidelines for design of bi- and multimodal displays, and also an overview of "novel" and interesting display techniques. The activities were focused towards a specific research area: displays to support the helicopter pilot in conditions of degraded visibility, mainly when the helicopter rotor blows up dust or snow, termed brownout and whiteout. The reason for choosing this area was partly that degraded visibility, e.g. when landing, is very safety critical, but also that one project member had participated in a NATO group on brownout, which entailed relevant domain knowledge. The project has produced a number of visual, tactile, and bimodal displays for indication of lateral and vertical drift in the helicopter. The displays were tested in a helicopter simulator in six experimental studies with novice participants and in one study with professional civilian helicopter pilots. To conclude, the results of the experiments show that the use of a drift display increases the ability to control lateral drift. This holds both for visual and tactile drift displays. This demonstrates the possibilities of using a tactile display for indication of lateral drift, which can reduce the visual load on the pilot by increased possibilities to focused attention to the ground and simultaneously receiving drift information from a display. The best solution is probably to combine visual and tactile information in a bimodal display. Design of a tactile display for indication of vertical drift must be further investigated. The results may most likely be generalized, e.g., to display development in fighter aircraft cockpit.