[LUM#3] Under Safer Skies

[LUM Magazine] - Published on July 5, 2016 in Science and Society

Even more reliable airplanes: that’s what researchers promise at EuroMov. These motion specialists are tackling a pilot’s arch-nemesis: spatial disorientation.

Can you tell up from down? Can you tell the difference between going up and going down? Yes, of course! It’s easy when you have both feet on the ground. But it’s harder when you’re at the controls of an airplane or a helicopter…“The senses we rely on to maintain our balance and distinguish up from down are no longer reliable when we’re in motion without an external reference point,” explains Benoît Bardy.

This sensory confusion can cause a pilot to have a distorted perception of his or her position and movement relative to the Earth. The pilot then experiences “spatial disorientation”—a phenomenon that is still poorly understood but has serious consequences: 15 to 20% of airplane accidents are believed to be attributable to it.

Upside Down

To study this phenomenon, Airbus and Onera, the French aerospace research center, turned to researchers at EuroMov, the European Center for Research on Movement, and its specialists in spatial orientation.

“We have a simulator—the only one of its kind in France—called iMose, which allows us to place airplane and helicopter pilots in simulated situations to analyze their reactions,” explains the director of Euromov.“They wear a virtual reality headset to replicate real flight conditions as faithfully as possible,” adds Jérémie Landrieu. They’re alsoequipped with sensors to measure their stress levels, brain activity, and eye movements.

Safer Flights

The goal of this project, called CoSenses, is to improve flight safety.“A better understanding of spatial disorientation will enable us to develop solutions to mitigate the risks and reduce the number of accidents,” says Benoît Bardy.

And there are many potential solutions being discussed: improving the training programs used in flight schools, modifying cockpit ergonomics, and optimizing human-machine interfaces.“This is an important issue because, in the event of spatial disorientation, there can be a discrepancy between the pilot’s sensory perceptions and the information provided by the flight instruments,” explains Jérémie Landrieu.

“The three-year CoSenses project will develop a prototype for a new human-machine interface,” explains Benoît Bardy. This is good news for the roughly three billion passengers who fly each year. Air travel is already the safest mode of transportation, ahead of rail… and far ahead of road travel, which is responsible for 1.24 million deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Keywords: Innovation, LUM#3, LUM Magazine, Research, Technology