Key Constructs, Measures, and Considerations for Human Factors Researchers in the Advanced Air Mobility Domain

Abstract

The emergence of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) has seen the design of new electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that will be utilized to serve the AAM market and associated use cases. Before operations commence, aircraft manufacturers must obtain a government-issued type certificate proving that the new aircraft meets prescribed safety levels. Human factors is an important aspect of AAM certification as the proposed designs have significant changes to how pilots will interact with the aircraft. Published certification standards create an opportunity for human factors researchers to generate meaningful ties between the research being conducted in their laboratories and the work being conducted in the industry to prove the effectiveness and safety of AAM systems. To facilitate this, the current effort identified human factors language used in the certification documents that is related to information processing on the flight deck and relevant to AAM aircraft. This language was then mapped to constructs and associated measures studied in the literature. This mapping can serve as a guide for human factors researchers to ensure the relevancy of the research being conducted for this emerging domain.