Pilot State Monitoring Wearable Systems in Real Environment: Pilot’s Usability and Acceptance Feedback to Enhance Risk Management

In times of increasingly complex working environment, Airline pilots seems to be exposed to the risk of sustained cognitive demands, stress, workload that could potentially lead to cognitive fatigue. In this situation, the likelihood of human errors/mistakes could also increase. The main challenge of the present research is to validate and implement a Pilot State Monitoring (PSM) wearable system and near-infrared cameras to identify actual stress and workload levels of pilots, in real-environment flights. The setup of PSM devices into the live environment of an airline cockpit requires an assessment of technological, organizational, and safety & security aspects, including pilots’ usability and acceptance of the wearable PSM itself. A three-fold approach, adapting ISO 9241–210, was used to include the context of use and organizational requirement into the design process. Such methodological approach allows to assess the effectiveness of wearable for predicting actual pi-lot’s workload, stress, and fatigue in real-environment flights.