Vehicular Control by Visual Field Cues-analytical Model and Experimental Validation

The development and experimental validation of an analytical model for manual visual field control (VFC) of aircraft is presented. A basic model for control-oriented visual field information (VFI) is proposed and formulated in an optimal control framework. A special case of VFC is studied, namely, the manual lateral control of a TV guided remotely piloted vehicle (RPV) along a straight reference trajectory in the presence of side gusts. For experimental validation, a five-degree-of-freedom fixed-base simulator has been constructed to simulate a RPV flight along a nominally straight reference trajectory. The starting point in the validation program was a VFI model based on error detection at a single looking distance, which is proved to be correct for fixed distance viewing but not for the complete VFC task. The analytical model is then reformulated to allow VFI detection at two looking distances. This two-distance VFI model was found to be an adequate representation for the complete VFC task and to match the experimental results closely, thus enabling the determination of the human operator (HO) parameters within narrow limits.