Advanced integrated general aviation primary flight display user interface design : development and assessment

Abstract

This thesis describes work performed during a project in the Master of Engineering degree program in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was performed in close coordination with the Avidyne Corporation of Bedford, Massachusetts and involved design, development and assessment of the user interface for a primary flight display/horizontal situation indicator. The effort began with a Quality Function Deployment analysis of needs and requirements. Next the hardware interface was developed through two trade study iterations. Software interfaces were developed using various techniques including the Goals, Operators, Methods, Selection Rules (GOMS) Keystroke-Level Model. Two iterations of software interface development were conducted to accommodate evolving corporate business strategy. A human subject evaluation using a personal computer based simulation resulted in quantitative and qualitative results that indicate significant gains over a recent prototype. Improvements to the user interface were made in several areas including task execution time, accuracy and a subjective comparison of ease of use. Over the six common tasks, the mean task execution time for the baseline display was 37.6 seconds compared with 23.6 seconds and 22.2 seconds for two alternative user interfaces. In addition the accuracy of setting the standby NAV format task was significantly better in the new user interfaces. In a redundant paired comparison of the three interfaces based upon ease of use, the new interfaces were significantly better than the baseline. The application of the GOMS Keystroke-Level Model to primary flight display user interface design was validated through the human subject evaluation. Project outcomes support the Avidyne product development goal of fielding the first 'Highway-in-the-Sky' (HITS) flight display for general aviation applications.