FlyBrate: Evaluating Vibrotactile Cues for Simulated Flight

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.