A 2-DoF Haptic Support System for Helicopter Control Tasks based on Pilot Intent Estimation

Haptic support systems have been widely used for supporting human operators when performing a control task. These systems are commonly designed to track known target trajectories. However, knowledge of the desired trajectory can not be assumed in many realistic cases. This paper proposes a possible approach to design a haptic shared control system for helicopter control tasks, when the target trajectory is not known a priori. First, a Pilot Intent Estimator (PIE) is developed to infer pilot intent. Then, the corresponding intended trajectory is generated. Eventually, a haptic feedback is designed to track the estimated intended trajectory. The designed PIE was evaluated in a preliminary test with an experienced helicopter pilot. Then, a human-in-the-loop experiment with minimal-trained participants was conducted to assess the proposed shared control system. Results showed the effectiveness of the PIE to correctly estimate pilot intent and to generate a good estimate of the intended trajectory. Moreover, the haptic feedback helped participants to accomplish the control task with lower tracking error (i.e, better performance) compared to manual control.