Principles for Minimizing Cognitive Assistance Distraction in the Cockpit

Abstract

Over the last three years, the MITRE Corporation has been developing a cognitive assistant concept for pilots called Digital Copilot. Digital Copilot reduces pilot workload and increases safety by offloading pilot tasks, increasing task efficiency, and inferring pilot intent to provide the right information at the right time. In this paper, we will introduce the Digital Copilot concept and review three design principals for the cockpit cognitive assistance gleaned from the design process, flight testing, and simulator studies of Digital Copilot with General Aviation pilots.