Human-in-the-Loop Simulation Experiment of Integrated Arrival/Departure Control Services For NextGen Operational Improvement

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sehchang Hah ◽  
Ben Willems ◽  
Gary Mueller ◽  
Daniel R. Johnson ◽  
Kenneth Schulz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Simulation Experiment ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
High Fidelity ◽  
National Airspace System ◽  
Subjective Data ◽  
Control Center ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Operational Improvement

The National Airspace System suffers from a reduction in airport throughput or even closure when weather or traffic volume constrains arrival or departure gates to and from the Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facilities. To alleviate this, the Federal Aviation Administration introduced the Integrated Arrival and Departure Control Services (IADCS) concept that would extend terminal separations and procedures to the adjacent Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) sectors for more flexible traffic. It proposes the use of resectorization, bidirectional gates, bidirectional routes, and Air Traffic Control assigned routes. We evaluated them in the human-in-the-loop high-fidelity experiment and collected objective and subjective data. Our results clearly showed that all IADCS procedures except the vertically separated/bidirectional gate procedure were more effective than the Baseline condition that controllers currently use in the field. We conjecture the vertically separated/bidirectional gate procedure requires more complex perceptual and cognitive processes than the other procedures.

scholarly journals Cardiac-Activity Measures for Assessing Airport Ramp-Tower Controller’s Workload

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-75
Author(s):  
Miwa Hayashi ◽  
Victoria L. Dulchinos
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Mental Workload ◽  
Cardiac Activity ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
High Fidelity ◽  
Measurement Capability ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Activity Measures

Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) potentially offer objective, continuous, and non-intrusive measures of human-operator’s mental workload. Such measurement capability is attractive for workload assessment in complex laboratory simulations or safety-critical field testing. The present study compares mean HR and HRV data with self-reported subjective workload ratings collected during a high-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulation of airport ramp traffic control operations, which involve complex cognitive and coordination tasks. Mean HR was found to be weakly sensitive to the workload ratings, while HRV was not sensitive or even contradictory to the assumptions. Until more knowledge on stress response mechanisms of the autonomic nervous system is obtained, it is recommended that these cardiac-activity measures be used with other workload assessment tools, such as subjective measures.

scholarly journals Computational Platform for Analyzing the Safety of the National Airspace System

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. K. Menon ◽  
Bong-Jun Yang ◽  
Parikshit Dutta ◽  
Sang Gyun Park ◽  
Oliver Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
National Airspace System ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Flight Operations ◽  
Computational Platform

Safety analysis of complex systems can be carried out using computational models of the subsystems and their interactions. A modeling framework for analyzing the safety of the national airspace operations is described. The framework enables investigators to collaboratively formulate models of the subsystems of the National Airspace System and insert off-nominal operating conditions to assess their impact on the overall system safety. The software is designed to allow popular computational frameworks such as Python and Java to interact with it in a seamless manner. Interfaces to one of the popular commercial computational package are also provided. The software incorporates detailed aspects of the national airspace system infrastructure such as airport taxi ways and runways, approach-departure procedures, jet routes, air traffic control Sector and Center boundaries. It also includes simplified human performance models of controllers, pilots and ground vehicle operators. Performance data for over 400 different aircraft types, derived from a well-known database have also been incorporated. Airspace flight operations data is obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration data feed, and the weather data is derived from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration web site. Two example applications of the software are given.

Human Factors Evaluation of Conflict Resolution Advisories for Air Traffic Control in the En Route Domain

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-98
Author(s):  
Sehchang Hah ◽  
Ben Willems ◽  
Gary Mueller ◽  
Daniel R. Johnson ◽  
Hyun Woo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Human Factors ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Simulation Experiment ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers

In this paper, we report results of a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment that evaluated how Conflict Resolution Advisories (CRA) affected en route air traffic controllers’ performance. Twelve current en route Certified Professional Controllers from Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) participated in the experiment. Results showed that controllers used CRA menus significantly more often than Baseline menus. They also spent more time interacting with the CRA menus than with the Baseline menus. Most of the participants’ subjective ratings favored the CRA, but they also pointed out a few features to be improved.

Evaluation of Airport Size and Delay Causal Factor Effects on Delay Propagation Dissipation

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110556
Author(s):  
Stephanie Atallah ◽  
Susan Hotle
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Causal Factor ◽  
Civil Aviation ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
National Airspace System ◽  
Average Delay ◽  
Control Center ◽  
Delay Propagation ◽  
The Relationship

The International Civil Aviation Organization identifies departure and arrival punctuality as on-time key performance indicators. However, these metrics assume a flight’s delay is a result of either the origin or destination airport, providing limited information on where delay should be mitigated in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). This study evaluates the relationship between delay propagation magnitude, delay causal factor, airport size, and charged facility (airport or Air Route Traffic Control Center), to examine if certain delays take longer to dissipate. First, using flights from July 2018, results show that most delay propagation chains originate at large-hub airports. However, these delays were the quickest to recover. Second, this study presents a regression model, predicting total propagated delay using fixed effects based on the weather region where the original delay occurred. Each additional flight affected by downstream delay adds 18.7 min on average to total arrival delay in a propagation chain. Additionally, if weather was the original causal factor, total propagated delay increased by 11.6 min compared with non-weather delays. Lastly, this study compares delay propagation in July 2018 and July 2020. Results show uneven impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) across the large-hub airports. Some of the investigated airports did not witness large improvements in average delay per delayed flight, warranting further research in the future. While delay and delay propagation have not been completely eradicated in the NAS during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings suggest that both have significantly declined on average.

scholarly journals Privacy-Preserving Smart Road-Pricing System with Trustworthiness Evaluation in VANETs

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3658
Author(s):  
Qingfeng Zhu ◽  
Sai Ji ◽  
Jian Shen ◽  
Yongjun Ren
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Traffic Management ◽  
Location Privacy ◽  
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks ◽  
Intelligent Transportation System ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Security Analysis ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Experimental Simulation ◽  
Control Center

With the advanced development of the intelligent transportation system, vehicular ad hoc networks have been observed as an excellent technology for the development of intelligent traffic management in smart cities. Recently, researchers and industries have paid great attention to the smart road-tolling system. However, it is still a challenging task to ensure geographical location privacy of vehicles and prevent improper behavior of drivers at the same time. In this paper, a reliable road-tolling system with trustworthiness evaluation is proposed, which guarantees that vehicle location privacy is secure and prevents malicious vehicles from tolling violations at the same time. Vehicle route privacy information is encrypted and uploaded to nearby roadside units, which then forward it to the traffic control center for tolling. The traffic control center can compare data collected by roadside units and video surveillance cameras to analyze whether malicious vehicles have behaved incorrectly. Moreover, a trustworthiness evaluation is applied to comprehensively evaluate the multiple attributes of the vehicle to prevent improper behavior. Finally, security analysis and experimental simulation results show that the proposed scheme has better robustness compared with existing approaches.

Stress Management and Air Traffic Control Trainees: Development and Evaluation of a New Training Course

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 1155-1159
Author(s):  
Jamie D. Barrett ◽  
Brett Torrence ◽  
Michelle Bryant ◽  
Linda Pierce ◽  
Julia Buck
Keyword(s):  
Stress Management ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Management Training ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Medical Institute ◽  
Stress Management Training ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Aerospace Medical ◽  
And Performance

The primary mission of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is to maintain the safety of the National Airspace System (NAS). As part of this mission, the FAA is tasked with ensuring that future air traffic controllers are adequately trained to perform the high-risk job of directing air traffic. The FAA Academy curriculum for newly hired controllers involves 3-4 months of intensive lessons and performance assessments. It has been suggested that this training program is quite stressful, and successful trainees tend to be those who can better manage stress. To support ATC trainees, researchers at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) have conducted operational research to develop and evaluate a stress management training to help trainees manage their stress during training at the FAA Academy.

Expertise in Air Traffic Control (ATC): What is it, and how Can we Train for It?

1992 ◽  
Vol 36 (17) ◽  
pp. 1326-1330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard E. Redding ◽  
John R. Cannon ◽  
Thomas L. Seamster
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Task Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Federal Aviation Administration ◽  
Cognitive Task Analysis ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Curriculum Redesign ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Training Efficiency

The Federal Aviation Administration has embarked on a major curriculum redesign effort to improve the training efficiency of en route air traffic controllers. Included in this effort was a comprehensive cognitive task analysis conducted in several phases, spanning several years. Eight different types of data collection and analysis procedures were used, resulting in an integrated model of controller expertise. This paper provides a description of controller expertise, and describes the training program under development. This is one of the first examples of cognitive task analysis being applied to study expertise in complex cognitive tasks performed in time-constrained, multi-tasking environments.

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