Subjective and Objective Metrics for the Evaluation of Motion Cueing Fidelity for a Roll-Lateral Reposition Maneuver

This paper describes an experiment conducted to investigate the effects of roll-lateral motion cueing algorithm settings on motion fidelity for helicopter roll-lateral repositioning tasks. A total of 13 motion conditions, comprising two roll gain settings, two degrees of roll-lateral coordination and three roll washout intensities, were tested by four pilots on the CyberMotion Simulator at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. An emphasis was put on the use of objective measurements for motion fidelity determination, in addition to collected subjective handling quality ratings (HQR) and motion fidelity ratings (MFS). Higher roll gains were found to have a beneficial effect on both the subjective and the objective metrics, which is in line with previous findings. Reducing the degree of coordination had a negative effect on subjective ratings, but did not show a consistent negative effect for the considered objective metrics. Stronger roll washout had a large and consistent negative effect on the subjective ratings. This is confirmed by the obtained objective measurements, which show high control activity and less realistic vehicle trajectories during the deceleration and stabilization phase of the maneuver for conditions with strong roll washout. We conclude that roll and lateral gain are more effective than roll washout to attenuate the simulated motion