Innovative multi-sensors device deployment for fighter pilots activity study in a highly realistic Rafale simulator

Cardiac and respiration activities are relatively easy to measure and widely used to monitor pilot workload during simulated or real flight. Few studies include electrodermal and pupil diameter measurements probably due to strong operational constraints. These measures are though well-known for being sensitive to mental workload. In a flight framework, the addition of electrodermal activity sensors does not complicate the experimental protocol (wristband wearing) whereas pupillary diameter recording requires a much sizeable device (eye tracker utilization). In the experiment presented in this paper, heart rate, respiratory rate, sbapkin conductance and pupil diameter were collected during simulated tactical flights. The main novelty of the proposed experimental design relates to eye tracking device integration into a highly realistic flight simulation. To cover entire pilot visual field and prevent measurements loss, a double-tracking design was tested (i.e. combination of two optical pairs). Preliminary analysis overall confirmed the reliability of this experimental setup showing a high quality of measures. Nevertheless, extra care should be taken for skin conductance signal that seems particularly sensitive to movement artefacts. Owing to observed reliability of data acquisition from eye tracker it may be possible to widen proposed device to ocular behaviour measure (scanpaths) in highly realistic flight simulation.