A Visual-Haptic Display for Human and Autonomous Systems Integration

This paper introduces a novel concept of visual-haptic display for situational awareness improvement for crowded and low altitude airspace situations. It presents first the visual augmentation display that constitutes of Virtual Fences delimiting no-fly zones, and a specific threei-dimensional highlight graphics that enhances visibility of other autonomous (or not) agents in the area. Then it presents the shared control paradigm and the Haptic Force generation mechanism, based on a Proportional-Derivative-like controller applied to repulsive forces generated by the Virtual Fences and other UAVs. Simulations with 26 pilots were performed in a photo-realistic synthetic environment showing that the Visual-haptic Display outperforms the Visual Display only at helping the pilot keeping distance from no- fly zones and other vehicles.