Preliminary study of a pilot performance monitoring system based on physiological signals

The rising operating costs and the decreasing availability of pilots push the aviation market towards Single Pilot Operations. Due to the related need for a cockpit assistant able to understand pilots’ cognitive workload and stress and the lack of robust solutions, the relationship of these conditions with variations in physiological parameters is being studied. In this paper, initial computer cognitive tests were performed on thirty healthy volunteers, providing the physiological parameters of PPG, EDA, and temperature under four mental workloads and stress conditions. A statistical approach was performed to identify these cognitive states’ 16 out of 43 most representative characteristics.