Visual augmentation for night flight over featureless terrain

Visual augmentation technique based on infrared cueing lights which project from the aircraft to the terrain is proposed to mitigate the problems associated with night flight over regions with featureless terrains. A series of simulation studies evaluated the effectiveness of several cueing light configurations. Results indicate that certain relatively low-cost cueing light configurations can be effectively used as pseudo-flight directors without impairing the pilot's use of available natural cues in the scene. Pilots prefer configurations which provide multiple samples of the forward terrain. Providing several 'look-aheads' helps to resolve potential vehicle/terrain state ambiguities. It is concluded that cueing lights are capable of creating visual patterns which are readily interpreted and translated to control commands, thus providing pilots with intuitive, low-workload decision aids.