The cockpit associate: A "co-pilot in a box" for general aviation

An important focus of NASA´s Small Aircraft Transportation Systems (SATS) research initiative is the development of new technologies to increase safety for single-pilot operation of general aviation (GA) aircraft. Under the auspices of the SATS program, and with funding from the Mid-Atlantic Maryland SATS Lab¹, Applied Systems Intelligence, Inc. is prototyping a Cockpit Associate, a knowledge-based decision aiding system that provides the pilot with relevant flight information commonly provided by a co-pilot. The Cockpit Associate can intelligently manage electronic checklists, select navigational charts, and recommend route revisions when world state changes (e.g. weather and traffic). This can improve a single pilot´s awareness of pertinent flight information, and at the same time reduce the pilot´s cognitive workload that is devoted to obtaining such information. We describe three main functions of the Cockpit Associate: (1) monitoring relevant world state, including pilot actions and aircraft status, (2) matching monitored world state against a model of general aviation flight activities in order to identify the current intent of the pilot (e.g. preparing for takeoff, or reacting to a given emergency), and (3) simplifying the retrieval of relevant information and alerts via use of existing onboard avionics suites and a special-purpose Cockpit Associate display. We present the Cockpit Associate´s knowledge-based model of GA flight operations and its prototype implementation in a flight simulation environment. We also discuss a graphical display used to give the pilot shortcuts to a set of dynamically selected alerts and information aids, while leaving the pilot in full control of what information is viewed. We discuss future plans for the Cockpit Associate, including multi-associate coordination based on