SOAR TECHNOLOGY, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: Army helicopter pilots are inundated with information in the cockpit, and more is coming.

Description

Army helicopter pilots are inundated with information in the cockpit, and more is coming. But simply providing more information is not always the answer. With new technology constantly pushing more information into the cockpit, there is an ever-increasing demand for smarter management of that information before it overwhelms the pilot. Most cockpit displays require a pilot to navigate a series of screens to gather situational awareness for a decision. The time a user spends navigating these displays is less time spent building situational awareness. This proposal aims to improve helicopter pilots situational awareness and reduce pilot workload by reducing the time to find relevant information and decreasing the amount of irrelevant information presented to a pilot. To accomplish this, we will develop an Aviators Intelligent Assistant (AIA) that manages the amount and type of information sent to the display. The core of AIA is a domain-independent, context-sensitive display management component. AIA will also have application-specific interface layers for different data sources (e.g., Blue Force Tracker) and different display systems (e.g., Electronic Data Manager). By the end of Phase II, we will have an evaluated TRL6 beta version of AIA that is integrated onboard PM Air Warriors Electronic Data Manager.