Localization of Aircraft on an Electronic Navigation Display Using Verbal Communication

Abstract

The present study examined the use of a track-up aircraft navigation display in localizing the position of a second aircraft given only verbal communication information of its position. Two experiments examined the role of map rotation, number of available fixed reference points, and the relative position between two aircraft on the ability to localize the position of the target aircraft. Both experiments confirmed that performance declined with map rotations other than north-up, with the poorest performance at 90° of rotation. The number of reference points available increased the response time for localization but did not improve accuracy. The relative position of the two aircraft also affected performance, finding that aircraft located on opposite sides of a reference point or aligned with one of the 4 cardinal compass directions resulting in the fastest and most accurate localization.