Pilot-in-the-Loop Demonstration of an Energy Monitor and Crew Alerting System

To improve pilot situational awareness, the authors have designed an energy-state protection system to monitor the aircraft energy state and generate crew alerts through multiple modalities when the energy state deviates from a prescribed energy pro le. These alerts indicate whether the energy state of the aircraft is high or low as well as the magnitude of the deviation from the prescribed pro le. The system was evaluated for the approach ight phase in a xed-base ight simulator using ve ATP-rated test pilots. The overall ndings were: (1) the energy-state protection system improved energy tracking in a statistically signi cant manner without signi cantly impacting altitude, airspeed, or localizer tracking, (2) all test pilots found the energy-state protection system useful, and (3) the majority of test pilots found that the energy-state protection system reduced workload.