Designing for shared cognition in air traffic management

Abstract

It is to be expected that the task of an air traffic controller will change with the introduction of four-dimensional (space and time) trajectories for aircraft, as can be seen in ongoing developments in ATM systems in Europe (SESAR) and the US (NextGen). It is clear that higher levels of automation will need to be developed to support the management of four-dimensional trajectories, but a definite concept on a distribution of the roles of automation and human users has not yet been well defined. This paper presents one approach to the design of a shared representation for 4D trajectory management. The design is based on the Cognitive Systems Engineering framework and by using a formative approach in the analysis of the work domain, a step-wise refinement in the planning and execution of 4D trajectories is proposed. The design is described in three Abstraction Hierarchies, one for each phase in the refinement. The ultimate goal is to design a shared representation that underlies both the design of the human-machine interface and the rationale that guides the automation. It is foreseen that such a shared representation will greatly benefit the shared cognition in ATM and allows shifting back and forth across various levels of automation. A preliminary version of a joint cognitive system for 4D trajectory management has been developed and will be introduced in this paper. Further work will focus on the refinement of the shared representation by means of human-in-the-loop experiments.

Exploring the Potential Benefits of Multi-Aircraft Trajectory Manipulation in Future Air Traffic Control

“…The way participants used the MACR feature was mostly as expected: in the majority of situations, they used MACR for aircraft within the same traffic streams, especially when the crossing angle between the streams was low (30 degrees). For the (3,3) type, all participants who opted for MACR chose to perform two MACR actions, one per traffic stream.…”

“…The concept hinges on making aircraft adhere to stringent position and time constraints to keep aircraft safely separated whilst increasing airspace capacity. Unexpected separation provisions and delays could, however, disrupt the tight planning schedule and would thus create a need for short-term perturbation management [3].…”

Solution-Space-based ATC Support for 4DT Heterogeneous Aircraft-Mix Control

“…In developing interfaces and automated tools for future TBO-based ATM, we propose a different approach than that followed in cockpit automation, namely the design of a Joint Cognitive System (JCS) [10], where humans and automation work as a team [11]. An ecological approach to interface design [12], [13] is adopted where automation is built to support human thinking and creativity in dealing with foreseen, but especially unforeseen events [14].…”

Flow-Based Air Traffic Control: Human-Machine Interface for Steering a Path-Planning Algorithm

“…This shift will require new tools with higher levels of automation that can support the ATCO in solving perturbations caused by unexpected disturbances (e.g., changing wind conditions, delays, etc.) [2].…”