This report describes preliminary research into three-dimensional (3D) terrain displays for enhancing pilot terrain situational awareness and warning of potential ground collision. Two-dimensional plan-view terrain displays, as employed by current advanced terrain avoidance warning systems, are reviewed and their characteristics discussed. Previous research into 2D and 3D terrain displays is then examined to elucidate the relative merits and demerits of each format. A prototypical 3D terrain display integrated with a primary flight display, dubbed the Primary Flight and Terrain Display (PFTD), was developed to evaluate the technical and operational feasibility of using computer-generated 3D terrain images to enhance pilot terrain situational awareness. Various technical aspects of the implementation are discussed. In particular the selection of visual cues to enable the form of the terrain to be perceived with sufficient depth and trade-offs with computational load. The results of preliminary qualitative evaluation by a test pilot are also presented. Finally, this report briefly examines potential technical and operational problems of three-dimensional computer-generated terrain renderings for aerospace applications, including the problems of navigation and database error and human factor problems.
Technical Report of National Aerospace Laboratory: An Integrated Three-Dimensional Terrain and Primary Flight Display for Terrain Awareness and Alerting
1999
42 pages
Report
No indication
English
Avionics , Transportation Safety , Air Transportation , Display systems , Terrain avoidance , Aerospace industry , Warning systems , Accident avoidance , Characteristics , Terrain , Flight safety , Human factors , Navigation , Foreign technology , Three-dimensional displays , Ground collision avoidance , PFTD(Primary Flight and Terrain Display)