The Application of Flexible Areas of Interest to Pilot Mobile Eye Tracking

Abstract

Recent progress in the development of mobile Eye Tracking (ET) systems shows that there is a demand for modern flexible solutions that would allow for dynamic tracking of objects in the video stream. The paper describes a newly developed tool for work with ET glasses, and its advantages are outlined with the example of a pilot study. A flight task is performed on the FNTP II MCC simulator, and the pilots are equipped with the Mobile Tobii Glasses. The proposed Smart Trainer tool performs dynamic object tracking in a registered video stream, allowing for an interactive definition of Area of Interest (AOI) with blurred contours for the individual cockpit instruments and for the construction of corresponding histograms of pilot attention. The studies are carried out on a group of experienced pilots with a professional pilot CPL(A) license with instrumental flight (Instrument Rating (IR)) certification and a group of pilots without instrumental training. The experimental section shows the differences in the perception of the flight process between two distinct groups of pilots with varying levels in flight training for the ATPL(A) line pilot license. The proposed Smart Trainer tool might be exploited in order to assess and improve the process of training operators of advanced systems with human machine interfaces.