Three-Year Project to Empower the ‘Strategist Pilot’
Thales is coordinating a group of 27 major players from the European aeronautics industry and research communities in 12 countries to develop technologies for the future military cockpit.
The Enhanced Pilot Interfaces & Interactions for fighter Cockpit (EPIIC) project, funded by the European Defence Fund to the tune of €75 million (US$83 million), aims to meet the challenges of future air combat by identifying, developing and evaluating breakthrough technologies and new human-machine interfaces. These technologies will support pilots by creating an immersive environment to support the mission. While coordinating the project, Thales is also focusing its own efforts on two technologies:
- The future helmet sight will have to retain the advantages of previous generations – limited weight, brightness, precision, resistance to ejection – while offering a wider field of vision, superior immersion by day and night, and intuitive display of mission and flight information.
- The helmet will also be able to house biological sensors measuring blood oxygenation, heart rate and brain activity, in order to analyze the pilot’s condition (hypoxia, fatigue, stress, etc.).
The need to accelerate the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop, and to act with complete discretion, will lead the pilot to become a true strategist, capable of managing multiple resources and of replanning mission phases in flight to ensure its success. The three-year EPIIC project aims to study and develop technological solutions that will improve the strategist pilot’s situational awareness and facilitate rapid decision-making in the most complex situations, while monitoring his or her physiological state.
The consortium will also evaluate a virtual assistant solution for the mission commander, taking his or her physiological state into account, thereby offering valuable support in the event of cognitive overload, fatigue, stress or tunneling. New displays, such as future free-form curved screens, canopy projection of pilot or mission information, and innovative human-system interactions will also be part of the EPIIC research agenda.
