scholarly journals The Efficacy of Operational Bird Strike Prevention

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Isabel Metz ◽  
Joost Ellerbroek ◽  
Thorsten Mühlhausen ◽  
Dirk Kügler ◽  
Stefan Kern ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Fast Time ◽  
Bird Strike ◽  
Bird Abundance ◽  
Capacity Limits ◽  
Operational Conditions ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Potential Safety ◽  
Safety Benefit

Involving air traffic controllers and pilots into the bird strike prevention process is considered an essential step to increase aviation and avian safety. Prior to implementing operational measures such as real-time warning systems, it is vital to evaluate their feasibility. This paper studies the efficacy of a bird strike advisory system for air traffic control. In addition to the potential safety benefit, the possible impact on airport operations is analyzed. To this end, a previously developed collision avoidance algorithm underlying the system was tested in fast-time Monte Carlo simulations involving various air traffic and bird densities to obtain representative conclusions for different operational conditions. The results demonstrate the strong safety potential of operational bird strike prevention in case of precise bird movement prediction. Unless airports operate close to their capacity limits while bird abundance is high, the induced delays remain tolerable. Prioritization of hazardous strikes involving large individuals as well as flocks of birds are expected to support operational feasibility in all conditions.

scholarly journals Visual Search and Conflict Mitigation Strategies Used by Expert en Route Air Traffic Controllers

Aerospace ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Ricardo Palma Fraga ◽  
Ziho Kang ◽  
Jerry M. Crutchfield ◽  
Saptarshi Mandal
Keyword(s):  
Visual Search ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Search Patterns ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Conflict Mitigation

The role of the en route air traffic control specialist (ATCS) is vital to maintaining safety and efficiency within the National Airspace System (NAS). ATCSs must vigilantly scan the airspace under their control and adjacent airspaces using an En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) radar display. The intent of this research is to provide an understanding of the expert controller visual search and aircraft conflict mitigation strategies that could be used as scaffolding methods during ATCS training. Interviews and experiments were conducted to elicit visual scanning and conflict mitigation strategies from the retired controllers who were employed as air traffic control instructors. The interview results were characterized and classified using various heuristics. In particular, representative visual scanpaths were identified, which accord with the interview results of the visual search strategies. The highlights of our findings include: (1) participants used systematic search patterns, such as circular, spiral, linear or quadrant-based, to extract operation-relevant information; (2) participants applied an information hierarchy when aircraft information was cognitively processed (altitude -> direction -> speed); (3) altitude or direction changes were generally preferred over speed changes when imminent potential conflicts were mitigated. Potential applications exist in the implementation of the findings into the training curriculum of candidates.

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.

scholarly journals Coding ATC Incident Data Using HFACS: Intercoder Consensus

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Wang ◽  
Yaohua Wang ◽  
Xiaoqiang Yang ◽  
Kai Cheng ◽  
Haishan Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Factors Analysis ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
High Hazard ◽  
Incident Reports ◽  
Comparability Of Results

Reliability studies for coding contributing factors of incident reports in high hazard industries are rarely conducted and reported. Although the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) appears to have a larger number of such studies completed than most other systems doubt exists as the accuracy and comparability of results between studies due to aspects of methodology and reporting. This paper reports on a trial conducted on HFACS to determine its reliability in the context of military air traffic control (ATC). Two groups participated in the trial: one group comprised of specialists in the field of human factors, and the other group comprised air traffic controllers. All participants were given standardized training via a self-paced workbook and then read 14 incident reports and coded the associated findings. The results show similarly low consensus for both groups of participants. Several reasons for the results are proposed associated with the HFACS model, the context within which incident reporting occurs in real organizations and the conduct of the studies.

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.

scholarly journals LEARNING INDIRECT ACTIONS IN COMPLEX DOMAINS: ACTION SUGGESTIONS FOR AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL

2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (04n05) ◽  
pp. 493-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADRIAN AGOGINO ◽  
KAGAN TUMER
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Transportation Systems ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Automated System ◽  
System Level ◽  
Research Issues ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Out Of The Loop ◽  
Series Of Experiments

Providing intelligent algorithms to manage the ever-increasing flow of air traffic is critical to the efficiency and economic viability of air transportation systems. Yet, current automated solutions leave existing human controllers "out of the loop" rendering the potential solutions both technically dangerous (e.g. inability to react to suddenly developing conditions) and politically charged (e.g. role of air traffic controllers in a fully automated system). Instead, this paper outlines a distributed agent-based solution where agents provide suggestions to human controllers. Though conceptually pleasing, this approach introduces two critical research issues. First, the agent actions are now filtered through interactions with other agents, human controllers and the environment before leading to a system state. This indirect action-to-effect process creates a complex learning problem. Second, even in the best case, not all air traffic controllers will be willing or able to follow the agents' suggestions. This partial participation effect will require the system to be robust to the number of controllers that follow the agent suggestions. In this paper, we present an agent reward structure that allows agents to learn good actions in this indirect environment, and explore the ability of those suggestion agents to achieve good system level performance. We present a series of experiments based on real historical air traffic data combined with simulation of air traffic flow around the New York city area. Results show that the agents can improve system-wide performance by up to 20% over that of human controllers alone, and that these results degrade gracefully when the number of human controllers that follow the agents' suggestions declines.

Real-Time Assessment of Operator State in Air Traffic Controllers Using Ocular Metrics

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-261
Author(s):  
Jonny Kuo ◽  
Michael G. Lenné ◽  
Rama Myers ◽  
Anna Collard-Scruby ◽  
Courtney Jaeger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Air Traffic Control ◽  
Pupil Diameter ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Continuous Operator ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
State Monitoring ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Operator Fatigue

This study examined the utility of continuous operator state monitoring in predicting air traffic control officer (ATCO) workload and fatigue. Participants (N=8) were observed in live operational air traffic control environments for 60-minute periods. ATCO state was assessed using a real-time, computer vision-based system which tracked operator gaze and pupil diameter. Workload and fatigue were also assessed via the adapted Bedford Workload Scale and Samn-Perelli Fatigue Scale, respectively. Standard deviation of gaze was a significant predictor of both max and mean workload, showing a strong negative relationship with both subjective measures. Pupil diameter showed a significant positive relationship with operator fatigue. Our findings demonstrate the utility of continuous ocular metrics of workload and fatigue in operational environments.

Omar Human Performance Modeling in a Decision Support Experiment

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (17) ◽  
pp. 1232-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Deutsch ◽  
Nichael Cramer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Performance Models ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
System Experiment ◽  
Multiple Task

Human performance models that simulate the multiple task behaviors of the operators of complex systems are now being developed that can, with appropriate discretion, be used to complement the human players in real-world-like simulation environments. We have developed and used human performance models for an air traffic control simulation that was the basis for a decision support system experiment with human subjects. The experiment is briefly described and the roles played by the human performance models for air traffic controllers and flight crews are discussed. The theory that forms the foundation for the development of the human performance models, and the Operator Model Architecture developed to create the models are presented. Future directions for research based, in part, on the experiment results are outlined.

scholarly journals Improving the training of air traffic controllers: Opinions from instructors in Singapore

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Ng ◽  
Isaac Levi Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Training Programme ◽  
Air Traffic ◽  
Civil Aviation ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
Just Culture ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Air Traffic Controllers ◽  
Convenience Sampling ◽  
Training Team

Air traffic controllers play a vital function with regard to ensuring the safety and efficiency of international civil aviation. Despite this, there is a lack of research addressing how air traffic controllers are trained. This paper collects opinions about the air traffic control (ATC) training programme in Singapore from a group of 30 instructors who were working within the aerodrome training team. Convenience sampling was used to recruit the participants and thematic analysis was used to identify key opinions. Significant advantages and disadvantages of the current training programme were identified, such as pre-training and simulator constraints. In addition to findings relating to the learning of required skill sets, interviews also highlighted the need for a just culture in the workplace and human factors training.

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