PERCEVAL and The Grail

Margareta Freitas, Thales Innovation Lead, and Antoine Choupay, Independent Instructor, will present in Session 3 (EBT/CBTA) of the EATS Pilot Training Conference, Wednesday 6 November.1415-1545 on ‘Bringing Facts & Metrics to EBT – The Instructor View.’

The following is an excerpt from The Robot in the Simulator: Artificial Intelligence in Aviation Training, a new book by veteran aviation journalist Rick Adams, FRAeS.

Rick will moderate these sessions at the European Airline Training Symposium (EATS), 5-7 November in Cascais / Lisbon, Portugal:

· ATO Conference, Wednesday 6 November, Session 4 – AI, 1630-1800

· Pilot Conference, Thursday 7 November, Session 5 – AI/Data, 0900-1030

He will also moderate the Artificial Intelligence table at the Heads of Training meeting, Tuesday 5 November.

Rick Adams will sign books during EATS: Wednesday afternoon coffee break, Airline Pilot Club (booth 806) and Thursday morning coffee break, Hinfact (booth 314).

In addition to EATS, The Robot in the Simulator can be ordered on the Aviation Voices website: Industry Issues Special Reports – AVIATION VOICES

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Perceval is the legendary literary figure best known for his quest, Perceval, the Story of the Grail, by 12th-century French author Chrétien de Troyes. A knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, Perceval pursued the golden (not holy) grail.

While out riding one day he encountered a group of knights – the airline pilot equivalent of the era - and realized he wanted to be one. He journeyed to Arthur’s court, where a young girl predicted greatness for him.

Gornemant de Gohort became Perceval’s mentor (instructor pilot) and trained him in the ways of knighthood.

Perceval encountered the Fisher King, Arthur’s guardian of the grail, and was invited to his castle, where he noticed a beautiful young girl carrying the elaborately decorated chalice. But the next morning he encountered a girl in mourning, who admonished him for not asking about the grail (Observable Behavior - Communication?), as it would have healed the ailing king (Situational Awareness?).

Alas, Troyse’s romantic saga was unfinished. Other authors attempted to complete the work, adding 54,000 lines of verse to the original 9,000 (software fixes). In one of the “continuations,” the tale ends with the Fisher King's death and Perceval's ascension to his throne – a Command Upgrade, to be sure.

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A French aviation training consortium is using an array of biometric sensors deployed in simulator cockpits in a quest to develop “a tool-based methodology for assessing pilot behavior,” ultimately spinning what they learn into improving evidence-based training (EBT) programs for pilots and air traffic controllers.

The PERCEVAL Project (Pilot bEhaviouR and CompEtency EVALuation) is supported by the French civil aviation authority, DGAC (La Direction générale de l'Aviation civile) and includes partners representing:

· An airline - Corsair

· A training center and ATO - Simaero

· A pilot and controller training school - ENAC

· Aeronautical leisure - AviaSim

· A research laboratory - Centre Borelli

· Industry - Thales

The partners bring an array of expertise to the project, including neuroscience laboratories, applied mathematics and medicine (Centre Borelli at Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay), created in 2020; aeronautical engineering and air navigation (Ecole Nationale de l’Aviation Civile), one of Europe’s leading air transport universities; an operator of simulator ‘experiences’ for non-aviators (AviaSim); a flight simulator training center which also operates an EASA-certified ab initio academy (Simaero); a long-haul scheduled airline (Corsair). Project lead Thales brings the knowledge and technology from its research in human factors for aircraft pilots.

The goal of the project is “to validate a tool approach to evidence-based training for pilots and air traffic controllers,” said Margareta Freitas, Thales Innovation Lead for the project. “Validate means technical, yes, but also acceptability, usability and the value for training. We are bringing together a wide spectrum of stakeholders.”

“The experimentation takes a really wide approach,” Freitas noted. “Crew training. Recurrent training. Ab initio training. And one use case for air traffic controllers, which was a special requirement from the French national aviation authority.”

“Evidence-based training is a new paradigm,” Freitas emphasized. “It is meant to help the cockpit crew or the operators to better deal with the complex reality that is the airspace today. The instructor is really a keystone in any training program, perhaps moreso in EBT. Being an instructor is very complex too.”

“What we would like to do in PERCEVAL is support the instructor with additional analysis tools to give the right treatment and observed behaviors and psychophysiological indices.”

“It is a multi-modal data acquisition from the crew and from the cockpit,” said Freitas. “Data is the enabler. This is what helps us to make the analysis – data capture, speech, gaze, touch, aircraft state, flight context, cognitive indicators, action sequences, crew interactions...”

“We are working closely with instructors that have experience implementing EBT to ensure that what we do in PERCEVAL will one day be useful in practical instructor life during the actual training session for monitoring and debrief,” the Thales technologist said.

Read More:

AI in Aviation Training: New Book by Rick Adams to Debut at EATS | Halldale Group

“I’m Here to Learn.” | Halldale Group

Sorry, Siri. Apologies, Alexa. You Cannot Be a Virtual Co-Pilot. | Halldale Group

Avianca Pilot Selection Project: Airline Pilot Club and Symbiotics | Halldale Group