An approach to situation awareness (SA) assessment in flight simulation: SA dynamic circulation (SADC) model

Accurate prediction and evaluation of pilot's situation awareness (SA) are of great importance for ensuring flight safety. In the present study, an SA dynamic circulation (SADC) model is developed for describing the dynamic generation and update processes of pilot's SA in-flight environments. In the SADC model, five cognitive statuses of SA, which constitute the dynamic circulation in a closed-loop network, are put forward on a framework of adaptive control of thought rational-queuing network. By introducing the progressive triggers of the low and high SA, pilot's SA covering three levels is computed using conditional probability. In addition, flight simulations based on four typical flight scenarios were performed to verify the usability of the SADC model, and multiple methods including the subjective evaluation, situation present assessment method (SPAM), and physiological measurement were adopted for SA measurement. According to the results, the rationality of the SADC model is validated due to the significant correlations between SA theoretical prediction value and SPAM response time as well as 10D-SART score. Besides, in our study, the SPAM response time and 10D-SART score show an acceptable sensitivity to SA measurement, however, physiological indicators of respiratory rate and standard deviation of normal to normal RR intervals are proved more sensitive to workload rather than SA. The SADC model is expected to be applied in the quantitative characterization of pilot's SA as a new auxiliary analysis tool during cockpit display interface design and flight training strategy optimization.