Human Perception and Control of Vehicle Roll Tilt in Hyper-Gravity
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Human Perception and Control of Vehicle Roll Tilt in Hyper-Gravity By Torin Kristofer Clark B.S. Aerospace Engineering University of Colorado at Boulder, 2008 S.M. Aeronautics and Astronautics Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2013 © 2013 Torin Clark. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT and The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in any part medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author: ____________________________________________________________ Torin K. Clark Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics August 22, 2013 Accepted by: __________________________________________________________________ Eytan H. Modiano Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics Chair, Graduate Program Committee 2 Human Perception and Control of Vehicle Roll Tilt in Hyper-Gravity By Torin Kristofer Clark DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Certified by: ___________________________________________________________________ Laurence R. Young Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics Professor of Health Sciences and Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thesis Committee Chair Certified by: ___________________________________________________________________ Kevin R. Duda Senior Member of the Technical Staff Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc. Thesis Committee Member Certified by: ___________________________________________________________________ Charles M. Oman Director of the Man Vehicle Laboratory, Senior Research Engineer, and Senior Lecturer Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thesis Committee Member Certified by: ___________________________________________________________________ Daniel M. Merfeld Professor of Otology and Laryngology Harvard Medical School Thesis Committee Member 3 4 Human Perception and Control of Vehicle Roll Tilt in Hyper-Gravity By Torin Kristofer Clark Submitted to the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics on August 21, 2013 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Aeronautics and Astronautics Abstract Pilots and astronauts experience a range of altered gravity environments in which they must maintain accurate perception and control of vehicle orientation for tasks such as landing and docking. To study sensorimotor function in altered gravity, a hyper-gravity test-bed was produced using a centrifuge. Previous experiments have quantified static tilt perception in hyper-gravity; however, studies of dynamic tilt, such as those experienced by astronauts and pilots, have been entirely qualitative. Current dynamic models of orientation perception cannot reproduce the characteristic perceptions observed in hyper-gravity. The aims of this thesis are to: 1) quantify static and dynamic roll tilt perception in hyper-gravity, 2) study pilot manual control of vehicle roll tilt in hyper-gravity, and 3) modify a dynamic model to predict hyper-gravity orientation perception. A long-radius centrifuge was utilized to create hyper-gravity environments of 1.5 and 2 Earth G’s. In one experiment, over a range of roll tilt angles and frequencies, human subjects’ (N=8) perceptions of orientation, in the dark, were assayed with a somatosensory task. Static roll tilts were overestimated in hyper-gravity with more overestimation at higher gravity levels and larger roll angles. Dynamic rotations were also overestimated in hyper-gravity, but generally less so than for static tilts. The amount of overestimation during dynamic rotations was dependent upon the angular velocity of the rotation with less overestimation at higher angular velocities. In a second experiment, human subjects (N=12) were tasked with nulling a pseudo-random vehicle roll disturbance using a rotational hand controller. Initial nulling performance was significantly worse in hyper-gravity as compared to the 1 G performance baseline. However, hyper-gravity performance improved with practice, reaching near the 1 G baseline over the time course of several minutes. Finally, pre-exposure to one hyper-gravity level reduced the measured initial performance decrement in a subsequent, different hyper-gravity environment. A modification to a previous dynamic spatial orientation perception model was proposed to allow for the prediction of roll tilt overestimation observed in hyper-gravity. It was hypothesized that the central nervous system treats otolith signals in the utricular plane differently from those out of plane. This was implemented in the model by setting a difference between the linear acceleration feedback gains in and out of the utricular plane. The modified model was simulated and found to accurately predict the static overestimation observed over a wide range of angles and hyper-gravity levels. Furthermore, it simulated the characteristic dependence of dynamic overestimation upon angular velocity with less overestimation at higher angular velocities. The modified model now allows for simulation across a range of altered gravity environments to predict human orientation perception. We conclude that hyper-gravity results in misperception of static and dynamic roll tilt and decrements in pilot manual control performance. Perception and manual control errors due to altered gravity, such as those observed here in hyper-gravity, may impact the safety of future crewed space exploration missions, in terms of accidents or aborts. Thesis supervisor: Laurence R. Young Apollo Program Professor Astronautics and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology 5 6 Acknowledgements To all of my advisers, mentors, professors, colleagues, labmates, friends, and family: thank you. Thank you to all of my committee members for their time and support in helping me with this thesis: my MIT advisor, Larry Young, for supporting me without limit and providing opportunities that I could have only dreamed of; my Draper advisor, Kevin Duda, for practical advice on all matters when I often needed it and keeping me at Draper; Chuck Oman for thought provoking discussions and inspiring me on science; and Dan Merfeld for excellent feedback, promptness, and a remarkable understanding of what is important. Thank you to my thesis readers: Paul Dizio for incredible comments and his wealth of knowledge and Faisal Karmali for guiding me along the way and encouraging me in this field. Thank you to Jon How for serving as my Minor Advisor. Thank you to Mike Newman and everyone at NASTAR Center for making these experiments happen. Mike championed these experiments as valuable and worthwhile, convinced everyone that they were safe, provided expertise from the science to operating the devices, and put in long hours to get all the little things done. Thank you to Caglar Unlu and Ebubekir Tipi for making the centrifuge do whatever crazy ideas we came up with and Amer Makahleh and Gregory Kennedy for tirelessly monitoring our subjects. I’ll never forget all of the little things that made my (roughly) 22 trips to Southampton, PA special: Budget rental cars (hopefully with an E-ZPass), Monster Assault energy drinks, Days Inn and Ramada hotels, the air mattress, Parx Casino, the Jersey Turnpike (particularly the Vince Lombardi rest stop), and of course, Panera Bread. The Man Vehicle Laboratory at MIT is without question the best lab in the world. I could not have possibly ended up in a more welcoming, fun, happy, inspirational, quirky, or funny laboratory if I had tried, instead of just getting really, really lucky. Thank you to all of my current and past officemates and labmates. Over my time here, there have become too many to list, but you are incredible, will go on to do remarkable things, and simultaneously kept me smiling and inspired for 5 very full years. Nothing was better than Warfish, sports analytics, or rallying the troops to head to the Muddy on Friday. Thank you. Thank you to everyone else in the MVL that makes this a special place: Alan Natapoff for trivia-laden statistical help, Andy Liu for an open door, and Liz Zotos for solving each and every one of my problems and without question being the best administrative assistant at MIT and probably in the world. Thank you to the rest of the MVL faculty, Dava Newman, Jeff Hoffman, and Julie Shah for all that they bring to the lab. Thank you to Karen Wilcox for her support of all things important. Thank you to my family and friends back in Colorado, most importantly Allie. You have been incredibly patient and understanding regarding why this has taken so long and tolerated the distance between Cambridge and Colorado. It has only been with your help and support that I gotten this far. This work would not have been possible without the generous funding support from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute through NASA NCC9-58, Draper Laboratory, and the Boeing MIT Graduate Student Fellowship. 7 Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................................. 7 Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................