Cognitive pilot-aircraft interface for single-pilot operations

Considering the foreseen expansion of the air transportation system within the next two decades and the opportunities offered by higher levels of automation, Single-Pilot Operations (SPO) are regarded as viable alternatives to conventional two-pilot operations for commercial transport aircraft. In comparison with current operations, SPO require higher cognitive efforts, which potentially result in increased human error rates. This article proposes a novel Cognitive Pilot-Aircraft Interface (CPAI) concept, which introduces adaptive knowledge-based system functionalities to assist single pilots in the accomplishment of mission-essential and safety-critical tasks in modern commercial transport aircraft. The proposed CPAI system implementation is based on real-time detection of the pilot's physiological and cognitive states, allowing the avoidance of pilot errors and supporting enhanced synergies between the human and the avionics systems. These synergies yield significant improvements in the overall performance and safety levels. A CPAI working process consisting of sensing, estimation and reconfiguration steps is developed to support the assessment of physiological and external conditions, a dynamic allocation of tasks and adaptive alerting. Suitable mathematical models are introduced to estimate the mental demand associated to each piloting task and to assess the pilot cognitive states. Suitably implemented decision logics allow a continuous and optimal adjustment of the automation levels as a function of the estimated cognitive states. Representative numerical simulation test cases provide a preliminary validation of the CPAI concept. In particular, the continuous adaptation of the flight deck's automation successfully maintains the pilot's task load within an optimal range, mitigating the onset of hazardous fatigue levels.