Title:
Quantitative Assessment of Human Control on Landing Trajectory Design
Quantitative Assessment of Human Control on Landing Trajectory Design
Author(s)
Chua, Zarrin K.
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Abstract
An increased thirst for scientific knowledge and a desire to advance humanity's presence in space prompts
the need for improved technology to send crewed vehicles to places such as the Moon, Mars, and nearby
passing asteroids. Landing at any of these locations will require vehicle capabilities greater than that
previously used during the Apollo program or those applied in Low Earth Orbit. In particular, the vehicle and
the on-board crew must be capable of executing precision landing in sub-optimal landing conditions during
time-critical, high-stakes mission scenarios, such as Landing Point Designation (LPD) , or the critical phase
of determining the vehicle's final touchdown point. Most proposed solutions involve automated control of
landing vehicles, accepting no input from the on-board crew - effectively relegating them to payload. While this method is satisfactory for some missions, an automation-only approach during this critical
mission phase may be placing the system at a disadvantage by neglecting the human capability of [what?].
Therefore, the landing system may result in a lack of dynamic flexibility to unexpected landing terrain or
in-flight events.
It is likely that executing LPD will require an ideal distribution of authority between the on-board crew
and an automated landing system. However, this distribution is application-specific and not easily calculated.
Current science does not provide enough detailed or explicit theories regarding allocation of automation, and
the advantages provided by biological and digital pilots (either acting as the sole authoritarian or as a coordinated
team) are difficult to describe in quantitative measures. Despite previous experience in piloting
vehicles on the Moon, few cognitive models describing the decision-making process exist. The specialization
of the pilot and the application pose significant practical challenges in regular observations in the target
environment.
The lack of quantitative knowledge results in predominantly qualitative design trade-offs during pre-mission
planning. While qualitative analyses have proven to be useful to the mission designer, an understanding
founded on quantitative metrics regarding the relationship between human control and mission
design will provide the sufficient supplementary information necessary for overall success. In particular,
increased knowledge of the impact of human control on landing trajectory design would allow for more
efficient and thorough conceptual mission planning. This knowledge would allow visualization of the flight
envelope possible for various degrees of human control and help establish conceptual estimations of critical
mission parameters such as fuel consumption or task completion time. This report details an experiment
undertaken to further understanding of the impact of moderate degrees of human control on landing trajectory
design or vice versa during LPD. This report briefly summarizes current understanding and modeling of
moderate control during LPD and similar applications, reviews previous and current efforts in implementing
LPD, examines the pilot study to observe subjects in a simulated LPD task, and discusses the significance
of findings from the pilot study.
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Date Issued
2010-12-02
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Text
Resource Subtype
Technical Report