Assessing the Effect of HUD on Operator Mental Workload and Behavioral Performance During Simulated Flight

The application of Head-Up Display(HUD) in aviation enables pilots to quickly and conveniently grasp flight information, but the organization and performance of HUD presentation information may affect the mental workload of pilots, thereby affecting flight performance. This study built a HUD simulation platform based on the open-source flight simulation system Flight-Gear. The mental workload and behavioral performance of HUD on pilots during actual flight are studied through experiments. The experiment selected three methods for measuring mental workload: subjective evaluation by NASA-TLX questionnaire, flight performance evaluation, and EEG data measurement. These three methods were combined to measure the changes in mental workload during flight from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. Results show that during flight, pilots mainly handle tasks related to space, motion, and decision-making related to flight operations. The assistance of HUD can effectively improve flight performance, reduce the psychological burden on operators, and alleviate the impact of fatigue on flight performance, but the improvement effect is not significant.