Online evaluation of helicopter pilot workload during flight simulator experiments

Enabling the assessment of pilot workload during flight could have very important consequences in enhancing flight safety, especially in rotorcraft, providing the tools for preventive actions against loss of situational awareness and, indicating the possible insurgence of adverse coupling interactions between the pilot and the vehicle. To assess and develop reliable indicators of pilot workload, to be used during flight, first the results of a SHOL operations flight simulation test campaign are analyzed, focusing on the pilot control activity in the time and frequency domain. Subsequently, to enlarge the available dataset, the development of a purposely-designed grip pressure measurement device is presented, along with the preliminary results obtained in a test campaign conducted at the Politecnico di Milano FRAME-Lab helicopter flight simulation facilities, aimed at evaluating the correlation between grip pressure and workload.