Emanuel Meier’s research while affiliated with ETH Zurich and other places

Contemporary aircraft cockpits rely mostly on audiovisual information propagation which can overwhelm particularly novice pilots. The introduction of tactile feedback, as a less taxed modality, can improve the usability in this case. As part of a within-subject simulator study, 22 participants are asked to fly a visual-flight-rule scenario along a predefined route and identify objects in the outside world that serve as waypoints. Participants fly two similar scenarios with and without a tactile belt that indicates the route. Results show that with the belt, participants perform better in identifying objects, have higher usability and user experience ratings, and a lower perceived cognitive workload, while showing no improvement in spatial awareness. Moreover, 86% of the participants state that they prefer flying with the tactile belt. These results suggest that a tactile belt provides pilots with an unobtrusive mode of assistance for tasks that require orientation using cues from the outside world.