Artificial Haptic Cues as Assistance for Simplified Vehicle Operations in Advanced Air Mobility

Active control inceptors have been used successfully in conventional aviation. However, with the imminent arrival of electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the use of force feedback as an assistance system should be revisited. In this paper, a concept for a haptic assistance system using an active force feedback sidestick was developed to assist a pilot in precise maneuver execution with an eVTOL. It uses soft stops, detents, tick cues, and stick vibrations to support the take-off, landing, and standard rate turn maneuvers in a generic eVTOL, operating under the Simplified Vehicle Operations (SVO) concept. The concept was validated in a thinking-aloud experiment with N = 10 subject matter experts in a simulator setup. Supporting the use of haptic detents for nominal stick positions and soft stops to indicate system limits, the study also provides insights into further findings on soft stops, tick cues, and vibrations.