A Literature Review and Proposal Towards the Futher Integration of Haptics in Aviation

Abstract

Flight simulator training is essential for aircraft pilots to learn and maintain the ability to fly specific aircraft for both commercial and defence purposes. With recent advances in extended reality, the implementation thereof has made its way into proposed simulated flight training protocols. In conjunction to the advent of extended reality, research into the use of haptics or the sense of touch within VEs has accelerated. A few challenges persist within simulation training including training effectiveness, level of immersiveness, and the manageable exposure duration per training run. Extended reality experiences face similar challenges. The field of haptics might provide solutions for these challenges. Thus, this paper reviews the state-of-the-art of haptics, current challenges, and possible future applications within aviation simulation and training. It is found that research with respect to the integration of haptics in aviation training and simulation is not yet mature. A lot of potential exists for research into the improvement of training effectiveness, performance and immersiveness within extended reality based simulation for flight training and maintenance engineering purposes via haptics. Based thereupon future work is suggested to look into 1) decreasing simulator sickness by simulating and synchronizing expected real life perturbations within flight simulation via haptic wearables 2) simulating a sense of physical flight within a static simulator set-up by leveraging self-motion 3) enabling physical interaction of aircraft parts digital twins for improving extended reality based maintenance engineering performance by utilizing haptic wearables.