Eye Gaze Controlled MFD for Military Aviation

Multi-Function Displays (MFD) are essential part of glass cockpit of modern military and civilian aircraft. They can display more information in less space than traditional analog displays. Interacting with MFDs is still now limited to a joystick system attached to throttle (called Target Designation System). Modern military aircrafts already explored touchscreen and voice activation system although moving hand in high G maneuvers is difficult and speech recognition system was not extensively tested for non-native English speakers. This paper explored using gaze controlled interface for MFD and proposed two algorithms based on hotspots and adaptable zooming for improving response times in a gaze controlled interface. Three user studies confirmed gaze controlled MFD can significantly reduce response times for big peripheral buttons compared to touchscreen in a head down configuration and compared to existing TDS in a head up configuration. Using our set up that consists of helmet, gloves and HOTAS used in existing military aircraft, participants could undertake pointing and selection tasks at an average time of 2.43 secs for Head Down Display and 1.9 secs for Head Up Display. This time estimation includes context switching from primary flying to secondary pointing task and significantly better than existing TDS (2.67 secs) and touchscreen (2.8 secs).