The Effect of peripheral vision on helicopter pilot performance and workload in degraded visual environments

When helicopter pilots fly in environments like snow, fog, sand, or any phenomenon that reduces visibility, workload spikes and performance decreases. Additionally, when landing in loose particulates, the downwash from the rotor blades can pick up the particulates and suspend them in the vortex ring of the rotor, thus creating a degraded visual environment (DVE). For the pilot, this is a stressful and workload intensive condition. With attentional resources being drained by the occurrence of the DVE, collisions with objects in the visual field are more likely to occur.

Another common phenomenon in DVEs is spatial disorientation (SD). Much of the human perception of orientation is dictated by peripheral vision. When the swirling particulates occupy the peripheral field of vision, it can cause a strong illusion of false motion. For rotorcraft close to the ground, pilots may attempt to correct this perceived false motion, and can cause the aircraft to collide with nearby objects or the ground.

HMDs have been used in the aviation community for decades to provide detailed information in the central field of vision. This paper explores a wide field of view HMD (WFOV HMD) that provides symbology across the central and peripheral FOV. The results indicate an effect of narrow and wide FOV on SCOWL, pilot performance, and subjective ratings.