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Air traffic controllers build up a comprehensive mental representation of the current traffic scenario, which is known as the 'picture.' This picture helps them ensure that aircraft are safely separated as they travel from one point to another in the airspace system. The maintenance of the picture is related to various strategies that controllers use to determine if a conflict exists between two aircraft. However, studies that deal with identifying such strategies are lacking. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to cohesively bring together the empirical literature that identifies these strategies and the instances in which they are used, to provide the reader with a basic set of strategies controllers use in conflict detection situations, and to discuss the application of such strategies in relates to controller training.

Free flight represents a major change in the way that aircraft are handled in the National Airspace System. It has the potential to significantly increase airspace utilization and, by doing so, improve aircraft throughput. The degree to which these objectives can be met without compromising aircraft safety will depend on appropriate changes in the air traffic control system. This study provides an objective evaluation of some of the possible effects of free flight on controllers' ability to maintain an accurate and complete picture of the traffic situation. This picture or mental representation is essential for monitoring and separation functions. The study revealed that, using current technology, some aspects of free flight might adversely influence the situation awareness and performance of controllers. The results of this study provided information for better defining how free flight should be implemented and for determining needed design and procedural modifications to support the concept.

A human-in-the-loop evaluation of the Operational Airspace Sectorization Integrated System (OASIS) was conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center. OASIS is an advisory tool built on an Android touch tablet, designed to assist Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) En Route Area Supervisors in their planning of sector combine/split operations as well as opening/closing of radar associate control positions over the subsequent two hours. During the experiment, eight retired FAA personnel served as participants for a part-task evaluation of the OASIS user interface and the underlying mathematical algorithm that provided the advisories. There were three experimental conditions: Baseline, Computer Recommend Plan (CRP), and User Generated Plan (UGP). In the Baseline condition, participants were presented with four different traffic scenarios and were asked to generate their own sector configuration plan solutions without OASIS. In the CRP condition, they evaluated the multiple advisory solutions that were generated by OASIS. In the UGP condition, they modified the OASIS advisory solutions to make their own solutions with the support of the OASIS tool. The participants considered the OASIS advisory solutions at least as good as their own, suggesting that the underlying algorithm provided good solutions for the Area Supervisors. In the UGP condition, the participants could not improve on the OASIS advisories by further tweaking the solutions. Participants gave positive feedback on both the user interface and the algorithm solutions, including an excellent average rating above 90% on the tool usability scales. They also suggested various enhancements to be incorporated into the next tool development cycle. The development of OASIS is a major activity of the Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) research focus area within the Airspace Systems Program.