Design considerations for presenting data-linked animated radar imagery on in-flight displays

Systems that provide data-linked weather information to pilots are becoming more widely available for general aviation cockpits, enabling graphical display of various weather products in flight. One challenge is to determine which weather products will be most cost effective and efficient at improving pilots' situation awareness and decision quality, and how to optimally package and present these products in flight. One such product of particular interest for indicating weather trending is animated weather radar imagery, or "weather looping". Use of a looping product in flight is different from ground use in at least three ways. First, the pilot's reference frame is moving, at a speed greater than that of the weather, so means of displaying relative rates of both the aircraft and weather motion to pilots may be useful. Second, the time available to look at an animated display is limited when flying, and likely will consist of a series of brief glances, rather than the dedicated gaze one could employ on the ground. Third, data-link capacity to aircraft is limited and expensive compared to ground data networks, so finding efficient means of transmitting looping products to aircraft becomes important. This paper briefly compares weather looping with two other weather trending presentations, describes a new "aircraft looping" concept to compensate for the pilot's moving reference frame, explores various design options and tradeoffs for in flight weather looping products, and outlines some general issues and approaches for experimentally determining looping parameters that are optimal for both pilot weather situation awareness and data-link efficiency. Design options covered include data-link methods, image resolution, number of loop frames, loop elapsed and cycle times, display symbology and user interface considerations. Experiment issues include the interdependence of test variables, variability of weather, and influence of concurrent workload.