Study On Civil Aircraft Drivers' Fixation Pattern Based On Analysis Of Eye Movements

Although the civil aviation accident rate is low and has fewer accidents, but civil aviation has the characteristics of sudden, international, severe damages and difficult to predict, make people, governments and international organizations more attention to the civil aviation safety.According to the statistical analysis of aviation accidents/incidents, we found that people's perception factors play the primary role in the civil aviation accidents. Pilots as the aircraft operator, use the flight information to operate plane. Most information of flight parameters and the state of plane, pilots are achieved with the help of a visual analyzer. In the visual flight, pilots should observe the outside of cabin space, and instrument indication. Even in low altitude where landmarks are visible, pilots should periodically transfer line of sight to the instrument. So that, vision plays an important role in the flight mission and the control of accident. The study on visual behavior of eye movement will help to discover the pilots' target search and the variation of hazard perception during the flight operation. The study also has important significance for pilot selection and training procedure, and provide methodological support for design new cockpit layout and risk early warning system.Based on the review and analysis of civil aircraft drivers' eye movement characteristics and related theories, this article carried out the experimental study on the characteristics of civil aircraft drivers' fixation pattern durning take off and landing task. An experiment platform was designed and constructed by the A320 simulator, using non-contact eye tracker named FaceLAB4.0 to collect data. The experiment was carried out on the route from Beijing airport to Wujiaba airport. Ten student pilots from Civil Aviation University of China as experimental subjects. Six of them are simulated flight team members(has been familiar with operation process), the other four are not(master the basic operation). Based on the origin of the pilots' visual information, the view of target was divided into five parts: electronic flight instrument system, engine/warning display, flight control unit, outside areas and the others.Data form 10 subjects were accepted to be valid by filter and analysis. The trajectories of fixation point, fixation point transfer number, the average time used in the target and fixation time percentage of different flight missions were studied. At last the characteristics of civil aircraft drivers' fixation pattern durning take off and landing task were concluded. This paper also explores the differences of fixation pattern between the different proficiency drivers.Analysis result indicates that, durning take off and landing task, the trajectories of fixation point is a kind of approximate triangular routes, it gives priority to alternate between outside areas and electronic flight instrument system. The number of fixation transferred fromfive parts is 30 to 50 time. The number will be more if the driver is a proficiency driver. The average time used in outside areas and electronic flight instrument system is between 1.5 and2.4 seconds. The time which experience fewer drivers used will get longer, they will focus too much on electronic flight instrument system and ignore the importance of outside areas during landing task.