A COMPARISON BETWEEN TRACKING WITH "OPTIMUM" DYNAMICS AND TRACKING WITH A SIMPLE VELOCITY CONTROL

This study was undertaken to verify the optimum control dynamics reported in WADC TR 59-712 and to lend experimental validation to the method in which they were derived. A simple two group experiment was performed to compare tracking performance on a single axis tracking task using the optimum dynamics with tracking performance using a simple integrator rate control. No significant difference was found in either learning rate or in tracking ability aft task was learned. A second experiment using the same experimental design requiring two-axis tracking was conducted to test the hypothesis that differences would appear only when the subjects were more heavily task-loaded. The optimum dynamics produced reliably better performance than the rate control in the two axis task. This result supplied experimental validation for the predictions made using the human transfer and reported in WADC TR 59-712.