The Application of Human Factors to the Development of Expert Systems for Advanced Cockpits

Expert system applications must be carefully selected, designed and integrated into the cockpit based on a full understanding of the pilot's tasks, requirements, and capabilities. In this paper, expert systems development issues in the following areas are identified and addressed utilizing processes, methodologies and knowledge from the human factors field: the selection of systems to automate, the elicitation of expert knowledge from pilots, role allocation between the pilot and the system, system design issues, and system evaluation. Considerations of pilot workload, situational awareness, performance and pilot acceptance are considered key to the successful design and implementation of expert systems which will truly enhance the pilot in the performance of his tasks.