Spatial Disorientation Alerting System for Pilots
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Solution Overview
Problem
Aircraft pilots often experience spatial disorientation due to misleading sensory inputs from the vestibular system during flight, particularly in environments with deficient visual cues, leading to dangerous illusions and loss of control, as the human senses are adapted for ground navigation and struggle to accurately interpret aircraft movements.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses sensors and avionic data to process flight parameters and apply them to a spatial disorientation model, predicting when pilots may become disoriented and providing alerts through audio and visual means, adjusting alert sensitivity based on predicted disorientation thresholds and types, such as somatogravic illusions, to guide corrective actions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If the vestibular system is used to detect aircraft movement and orientation, then the pilot can sense motion and maintain balance, but the pilot experiences spatial disorientation and false sensations of rotation and motion due to the system's inability to accurately interpret aircraft movements in flight
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary computational model that mediates between the vestibular system's sensory input and the pilot's perception. The system processes vestibular signals through a model of human vestibular response characteristics, comparing expected versus actual sensations to detect and alert the pilot about spatial disorientation before it becomes dangerous.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring vestibular inputs, processing them through the computational model, and providing alerts to the pilot when disorientation is detected. This closed-loop feedback mechanism allows the pilot to correct their perception and control inputs based on the system's warnings about potential spatial disorientation.
2Ease of operation
If the pilot relies on sensory input alone during flight, then the pilot can navigate using natural human senses, but the pilot experiences misleading sensory illusions because human senses are adapted for ground navigation
Solution Approach 1:
The computational model acts as an intermediary that processes raw vestibular sensory inputs and compares them against expected sensations based on aircraft state. This intermediary layer translates natural human sensory data into reliable spatial orientation information, maintaining ease of operation while eliminating misleading illusions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary processing of vestibular signals through the computational model before the pilot acts on them. By pre-processing and validating sensory inputs against the model's predictions, the system prevents misleading illusions from reaching the pilot's decision-making process in the first place.
3Adaptability or versatility
If visual cues are deficient during flight, then the pilot must rely on other sensory systems, but the pilot's ability to establish vertical orientation and sense spatial position deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple sensory inputs, particularly vestibular signals from the inner ear with other available flight data, and processes them through a unified computational model. This combination approach maintains adaptability to low-visual conditions while improving measurement precision by cross-validating signals through the model of human vestibular response.
Data Source
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AI summary
A system and method monitor aircraft state parameters, for example, aircraft movement and flight parameters, applies those inputs to a spatial disorientation model, and makes a prediction of when pilot may become spatially disoriented. Once the system predicts a potentially disoriented pilot, the sensitivity for alerting the pilot to conditions exceeding a threshold can be increased and allow for an earlier alert to mitigate the possibility of an incorrect control input.