Imagine deploying an airplane's landing gear solely through thought, without pressing a button in the cockpit. This scenario may sound like science fiction, but researchers in Toulouse are seriously investigating this possibility.
Since 2004, the Isae-Supaero university has hosted the first European laboratory focused on using neuroscience to enhance aviation safety. Today, human factors contribute to 80% of aircraft crashes. "When we started, neuroscience was not interested in aviation, and the aviation world approached human factors mainly through a psychoanalytic lens. Pilots were asked how they felt in various situations," recalls Frédéric Dehais, who has held the AXA Chair of 'Neuroergonomics for Flight Safety' since 2015.
Toulouse researchers have subjected pilots to catastrophic scenarios while analyzing their brain activity to better understand attentional bottlenecks. These phenomena can disrupt certain cognitive abilities, potentially leading to critical consequences during flight. "In a flight simulator, we enacted a scenario worthy of a Hollywood film, with terrible weather conditions, smoke filling the cabin, and significant turbulence. We simultaneously measured the electrical activity of the pilots' brains. It turns out that in such stressful conditions, the brain sheds certain senses deemed unnecessary. This is why a pilot might no longer hear cockpit alarms," explains Dehais.
Since 2020, the Toulouse engineering school has built a 240 m² center where researchers conduct various experiments. For instance, light aviation pilots underwent brief brain stimulations using electrodes for a week, which improved their multitasking event management performance.
An invisible risk for airlines
The research also led to the creation of the Toulouse startup Hinfact in 2018, which leverages neuroscience to enhance pilot training. Using an eye-tracking device, instructors can analyze pilots' visual movements in the cockpit and incorporate their observations during debriefings. The young company now goes further, utilizing flight simulator data to measure pilots' strengths and weaknesses, particularly in non-technical skills such as communication, situational awareness, management, and decision-making.
"With flight data, an airline knows it has a one in 10,000 chance of experiencing an engine failure at takeoff. However, it won't know the likelihood of pilots reacting appropriately to a situation based on their skills. This is a latent and invisible risk for airlines," notes Thomas Bessière, co-founder of Hinfact.
By optimizing pilot competency evaluations, the startup has shown that airlines can reduce the frequency of in-flight checks from once a year to every two years, resulting in significant savings on training.
Hinfact counts among its clients airlines like Corsair, Air Tahiti, and industries like Dassault and Airbus, which uses the software in its training centers. This is an irreversible trend: Europe now mandates that aviation training (Evidence-Based Training) focuses on a comprehensive evaluation of essential skills rather than solely on performance during isolated maneuvers.
At Isae-Supaero, researchers envision the future of aviation with the advent of intelligent cockpits. They have relied on eye-tracking to make recommendations to aviation authorities for optimizing pilots' visual paths within cockpits. The laboratory is also exploring brain-machine interactions to potentially trigger certain piloting operations through thought. One researcher demonstrates the electrodes placed on the back of his head to access his visual cortex. A series of numbers appear on his computer screen, and when he focuses on one, it turns green. "One limitation of eye tracking is that you might gaze into space, looking at an area of the cockpit without paying attention. If we piloted this way, it would trigger commands you did not intend," Dehais clarifies.
Finally, researchers will test in a simulator the ability to mentally deploy an aircraft's landing gear. This function could be useful in emergency situations or if airlines ever opted for a single pilot configuration in the cockpit (SPO: Single Pilot Operation).
These studies could also benefit the medical field, particularly through collaboration with the Toulouse University Hospital to examine the brain activity of patients in comas.
Florine Galéron, November 28, 2024, 17:01