IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2021 - 18

Feature Article:

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2020.3040511

Virtual Cockpit Instruments-How Head-Worn
Displays Can Enhance the Obstacle Awareness
of Helicopter Pilots
Johannes Maria Ernst , Lars Ebrecht , and Bernd Korn, German Aerospace
Center (DLR), Braunschweig 38108, Germany

INTRODUCTION
Driven by new technology, the appearance of flight decks
changed considerably over the years [1]. The classic gauge
instruments were replaced by wide-screen, flat-panel displays. Simultaneously, the conventional panel-mounted
displays (PMDs) were complemented by modern head-up
displays (HUDs). These can augment the pilot's outthe-window view with virtually overlaid flight-guidance
symbology. With its origins in the military sector, a
related technology is also on the rise: Helmet-mounted or
head-worn displays (HMD, HWD) are essentially like a
HUD attached to the pilot's head [2]. Their central advantage is that HWDs can augment the reality in every viewing direction. This is a major plus, especially for rotorcraft
pilots who often look in other directions than the forward
axis where HUDs are installed. The involved technologies
are currently pushed by the consumer electronics industry,
which continually develops better, lighter, and more
affordable virtual, mixed, and augmented reality
(VR, MR, AR) glasses.
In aviation, HWDs present various types of symbology. Simple forms are used for weapon aiming or simply
show see-through versions of a primary flight display [3].
More advanced systems make use of integrated headtracking modules to superimpose the symbology in a
visual conformal or scene-linked way onto the real world.
Examples of such implementations include the famous

Authors' current address: Johannes Maria Ernst,
Lars Ebrecht, and Bernd Korn, German Aerospace
Center (DLR)-Institute of Flight Guidance, 38108,
Braunschweig, Germany (e-mail: johannes.ernst@dlr.
de; lars.ebrecht@dlr.de; bernd.korn@dlr.de).
Manuscript received August 10, 2020, revised
November 17, 2020; accepted November 25, 2020, and
ready for publication January 14, 2021.
Review handled by Giancarmine Fasano.
0885-8985/21/$26.00 ß 2021 IEEE
18

" tunnel-in-the-sky " symbol sets, brown-/white-out landing
symbology, as well as terrain and obstacle representations
for missions in degraded visual environments (DVEs)
(cf. " Head-Worn Display Symbology " ).
At the German Aerospace Center, we introduced a
new type of HWD symbology [4]. The so-called " virtual
cockpit instruments " (VCI) are designed to be used
together with the existing symbol sets mentioned earlier.
A VCI is a two-dimensional virtual screen that is created
and projected into the pilot's view via an HWD. As illustrated in Figure 2(a), VCIs can be regarded as a virtual
version of a conventional cockpit instrument. The freedom
to choose the position and the size of the instrument independently of the available panel monitors creates great
flexibility for the design of future flight decks.
Such an approach can generate benefits for many use
cases. In this article, we describe how the VCI concept
can be applied to assist helicopter pilots in confined area
operations: in this case, a hoisting maneuver and a platform landing in an offshore wind park. Nevertheless, this
article will also show the general advantages of VCIs,
which makes the work a good basis if one wants to extend
the concept to other use cases in the future. It provides an
overview of the VCI concept and summarizes our main
findings from two simulator studies with 18 participants in
total. Finally, we draw conclusions how this approach can
be expanded and applied to other scenarios.
The work was conducted within the scope of the project " Development of Powerful and Efficient Avionic-Platforms for Fixed and Rotary Wing Aircraft " (AVATAR).
The joint project comprised several industrial partners and
research institutions. It was funded by the German Federal
Ministry of Economics and Energy in the frame of the
national " Aeronautical Research Program V (LuFo V) " . A
central project goal was the implementation and validation
of future flight guidance applications using next generation avionics hardware in order to evaluate the potentials
of future cockpit display systems. This article is based on
a series of conference publications [4]-[8].

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

APRIL 2021

https://www.orcid.org/0000-0001-8238-3671 https://www.orcid.org/0000-0002-8077-7391

IEEE - Aerospace and Electronic Systems - April 2021

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