Human factors in US Navy′s automated carrier landing system

Objective To review the key technologies related to pilot fatigue, human factors and man-machine interaction in US navy′s automated carrier landing system (ACLS) and provide references to design and development of our navy′s automated carrier landing system. Literature resource and selection The related literatures published at home and abroad were selected. Literature quotation Forty-four literatures were quoted. Literature synthesis Many factors such as the particularity of carrier based aircraft flight operations, the living at sea and time zone shift are all contributed to the pilot fatigue which seriously threatened the flight safety. US Navy have begun to research and develop the ACLS since 1960′s so as to increase the effectiveness of carrier landing as well as the environmental suitability and to decrease pilots′ workload. Since the importance and specificity of ACLS, US Navy highly concerned such factors as system reliability, human-interface design, human-human interaction, situation awareness and warning system during the process of design and development of ACLS. The critical technologies, such as the visualization of information, the measures of increasing situation awareness, fatigue modeling, real-time fatigue monitoring and etc., have been developed. Conclusions Pilot is the key factor that US Navy highly concerned in designing of ACLS. The ACLS helps the safe and reliable approaching in case of adverse visibility, sea state and other environmental influences disturbing pilot. The experiences and critical technologies obtained in the US Navy′s ACLS development would be the lessons and referring value for improving China′s system. Key words: Fatigue; Human factors; Aviation; Carrier; Carrier based aircraft; Automatic carrier landing system