Oliver Ohneiser

Portable Weather Applications for General Aviation Pilots

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the potential benefits and impact on pilot behavior from the use of portable weather applications. Method: Seventy general aviation (GA) pilots participated in the study. Each pilot was randomly assigned to an experimental or a control group and flew a simulated single-engine GA aircraft, initially under visual meteorological conditions (VMC). The experimental group was equipped with a portable weather application during flight. We recorded measures for weather situation awareness (WSA), decision making, cognitive engagement, and distance from the aircraft to hazardous weather. Results: We found positive effects from the use of the portable weather application, with an increased WSA for the experimental group, which resulted in credibly larger route deviations and credibly greater distances to hazardous weather (≥30 dBZ cells) compared with the control group. Nevertheless, both groups flew less than 20 statute miles from hazardous weather cells, thus failing to follow current weather-avoidance guidelines. We also found a credibly higher cognitive engagement (prefrontal oxygenation levels) for the experimental group, possibly reflecting increased flight planning and decision making on the part of the pilots. Conclusion: Overall, the study outcome supports our hypothesis that portable weather displays can be used without degrading pilot performance on safety-related flight tasks, actions, and decisions as measured within the constraints of the present study. However, it also shows that an increased WSA does not automatically translate to enhanced flight behavior. Application: The study outcome contributes to our knowledge of the effect of portable weather applications on pilot behavior and decision making.

Reducing controller workload with automatic speech recognition

Air traffic controllers normally manage all aircraft information with flight strips. These strips contain static information about each flight such as call sign or weight category. Additionally, all clearances regarding altitude, speed, and direction are noted by the controller. Historically paper flight strips were in operation, but modern controller working positions use electronic flight strips or electronic aircraft labels. However, independent from the type, considerable controller effort is needed to manually maintain strip information consistent with commands given to the aircraft. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is a solution which requires no additional work from the controller to maintain radar label information. The Assistant Based Speech Recognizer developed by DLR and Saarland University enables command error rates below 2%. Validation trials with controllers from Germany and Austria showed that workload reduction by a factor of three for label maintenance is possible.

MINIMA project: detecting and mitigating the negative impact of automation

In this paper, we present the preliminary steps conducted in the framework of the research project Mitigating Negative Impacts of Monitoring high levels of Automation (MINIMA). The main objectives of MINIMA are (i) to develop vigilance and attention neuro-physiological indexes, and (ii) to implement them in a system that can adapt its behavior and guide the operator’s attention. The goal is to mitigate negative impacts of the foreseen increasing automation in future Air Traffic Control (ATC) scenarios on Air Traffic Controller (ATCo) performance. The first step of research activities consists of better comprehension of Out-Of-The-Loop (OOTL) phenomena and of current methods to measure and compensate such effects. Based on this State of the Art, we propose the MINIMA concept, i.e. a dynamic adaptation of the task environment which is foreseen as a major requirement to keep the human ‘in the loop’, perfectly aware of the traffic situation. In the second part of this paper, we give details about the highly automated Terminal Manoeuvring Area selected as case study. Additionally, we describe the adaptation mechanisms that are planned to be implemented into this task environment and analyzed in the MINIMA project. Finally, the document provides information about the technical implementation of the vigilance and attention measurement that will be used to trigger adaptation of the task environment.

Improved User Acceptance During Stepwise Air Traffic Control Display Functionality Introduction

This paper addresses migration tolerant human machine interfaces for approach controllers considering shifting air traffic control (ATC) approach from distance- via time- and trajectory- to performance-based. It includes a series of learning steps between prototypically implemented display revisions that were evaluated by ten controllers. Nine iterative steps comprised distance marking, merge point appearances, new symbols, and parallel screen border orthogonal route structures for unidirectional aircraft movement on resulting monitoring display. Study participant group G9 worked with all ten display revisions experiencing nine transition steps; group G2 only used revision zero, five, and final display layout. Participants’ ratings on usability, learnability and operational acceptance dropped down for G2 but not for G9 especially when transitioning to last display revision with different step sizes. Thus, introducing new ATC display functionalities in a row of small logical and consecutive instead of very few broad integration steps improves user acceptance.

Context-based recognition network adaptation for improving on-line ASR in Air Traffic Control

This paper presents an approach for incorporating situational context information into an on-line Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) component of an Air Traffic Control (ATC) assistance system to improve recognition performance. Context information is treated as prior information to reduce the search space for recognition. It is integrated in the ASR pipeline by continually updating the recognition network. This is achieved by automatically adapting the underlying grammar whenever new situational knowledge becomes available. The context-dependent recognition network is then re-created and substituted for recognition based on these context-dependent grammars. As a result, the recognizers search space is constantly being limited to that subset of hypotheses that are deemed plausible in the current situation. Since recognition and adaptation tasks can be easily performed by two separate parallel processes, on-line capabilities of the system are maintained, and response times do not increase as a result of context integration. Experiments conducted on about two hours of ATC data show a reduction in command error rate by a factor of three when context is used.

Migration tolerant human computer interaction for air traffic controllers

Human machine interfaces (HMI) in the product division of air traffic management (ATM) are in use for long time spans. For an efficient use of HMIs not only user centered but also migration tolerant designs are important. Migration tolerance therefore means considering future requirements for a long lasting controller HMI life cycle. For efficient ATM, the concept of system wide information management (SWIM) will be introduced. This generates a large amount of additional information that will influence controller work. In this paper, we therefore describe a new controller role called Information-and-Conflict-Manager (ICM) who handles the complexity induced by SWIM. The resulting HMI design draft demonstrates how the integration of data could be managed. ICM also supervises training to support controllers successfully passing future flight guidance transitions.