Improving pilot procedure following using displays of procedure context

Despite the prevalence of procedures in safety critical systems, there has been little focus on developing automated support for procedure following. This document describes a method for leveraging an existing design methodology - procedure context - to provide guidance on the content of displays for this purpose. Procedure context categorizes information used when developing the procedure, but which is typically absent from displays and otherwise unavailable to the operator. In this paper, the method is applied to a pilot flying an instrument approach procedure. After identifying elements of procedure context which could assist the pilot and which are not currently presented, a display was developed which incorporated these elements. A simulator experiment was then run which demonstrated the utility of these elements to the pilot, reducing lateral error and improving situation awareness.