COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Which way is up and which way is down? That's a question no aircraft passenger ever wants their pilot to be unsure about.
"Spatial disorientation is a particularly dangerous scenario, when what the pilot perceives may not match reality," Dr. Umberto Saetti, aerospace engineering professor at the University of Maryland, explained.
While flight safety has been top of mind for a lot of travelers recently, after commercial plane crashes in D.C. and Toronto, researchers inside this lab on UMD's campus have been thinking about it for years, specifically how to enhance a pilot's perception when their other senses fail them.
Spatial disorientation is to blame for about 5 to 10% of all general aviation accidents, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and a staggering 90% of those accidents are fatal.
Investigators believe the pilot in the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant experienced spatial disorientation when he flew into thick clouds. It was that crash that inspired Dr. Saetti and a team of researchers at the University of Maryland to develop this technology.
"But say that I start drifting to the left, like I am right now, then I’m gonna feel a sensation on my right now that’s gonna indicate to roll back to the right in order to go back to the point where I was," Dr. Saetti explained as he demonstrated how the tech works to WMAR-2 News.
He's wearing a suit that provides haptic feedback, or touch sensations, across the body. Gamers sometimes wear suits like this so can “feel” when their avatar gets shot, for example. But in the real world, a pilot could use the haptic signals when their visual cues aren't available—like when they're flying through fog.
"For example, if the aircraft is rolling to the right steeply, then the pilot will feel a strong sensation on the left shoulder," Dr. Saetti said. "If the aircraft is rolling to the right particularly abruptly, then the pilot will also feel a strong sensation on the left shoulder. So the strength of the sensation is based both on the amplitude of the error, but also on the rate that the error is occurring."
The research team here at UMD is testing the tech using a virtual reality flight simulator, before it's introduced to the real world.
They're also testing out different uses for pilots on gadgets like this headset that could potentially measure a pilot's stress levels.
"So for example, if the pilot is experiencing high cognitive workload, then the aircraft flight control system can take over a little bit more. or can reallocate some of the tasks that the pilot would need to perform," Dr. Saetti explained. "On the other hand, if the cognitive workload is low, and perhaps the pilot is not engaged enough, maybe some additional tasks can be given to the pilot to keep them engaged."
It's not about automating the entire aircraft, but rather augmenting the pilot's perception in a high-stress or low-visibility flying environment.
"The applications are really endless, and I don't think we've even thought of every application yet," Dr. Saetti said.
The headset and the haptic suit are a bit clunky for a pilot to wear; the goal is to one day have wearable sensors that are a little less invasive.
As for when this kind of technology might be available for real-world use, Dr. Saetti told WMAR-2 News: "It’s hard to say but whatever happens in research is always 10-20 years away from real applications. So we have to really make sure that these things work first in a simulated, controlled environment."
Dr. Saetti has been working on this idea for about four years; the lab itself has only been up and running for two years.