Sara Bagassi

Design and evaluation of a four-dimensional interface for air traffic control

Abstract The increasing complexity of the air traffic system is pushing towards the development of innovative and more automated tools conceived to manage it. In this scenario, an important role is played by HCI (human—computer interfaces) used by air traffic controllers and operators to visualize and interact with air traffic data. Currently, information about three-dimensional (3D) scenery is displayed with a two-dimensional representation. This paper presents the design, development, and evaluation of an innovative interface for air traffic control (ATC) based on a four-dimensional (4D) (3D space+time) visualization display. The proposed interface allows the operator to perceive all the information, including meteorological conditions, that is useful for TWR/APP (ToWeR/APProach) control in a unique 4D synthetic reconstruction of the airport area. Particular attention is dedicated to the fourth variable, time, which is a fundamental parameter in ATC. A simple and fast trajectory prediction algorithm has been implemented in order to provide the operator with an effective ‘user assistance’ tool in conflict detection activities. The interface has been evaluated by performing test simulations and surveys were used to collect results and useful advice for its future development.

Route planner for unmanned aerial system insertion in civil non-segregated airspace

One of the most interesting challenges of the next few years will be airspace system automation. This process will involve different aspects such as air traffic management, aircraft and airport operations and guidance and navigation systems. The use of unmanned aerial systems for civil missions will be one of the most important steps in this automation process. In this article, an air traffic management oriented conflict detection & resolution algorithm that models air traffic management operative technique as avoidance manoeuvres in order to self-separate the unmanned aerial vehicle from piloted air traffic is presented. As a first step, a geometric analysis identifies all possible unmanned aerial vehicle routes among the mission targets and related potential conflicts with piloted air traffic. For each potential conflict, air traffic management operative techniques are used to model different options of conflict resolution: vertical and horizontal avoidance, speed regulation, holding patterns and rerouting. The performances of a reference unmanned aerial vehicle are used to estimate the cost of each possible sub-route and, in case of conflict, the cost of each possible avoidance manoeuvre. In this way, the unmanned aerial vehicle mission is modelled as a combinatorial optimization problem that concerns the sequencing of both targets and conflict resolution options. As output, a conflict free route that minimizes the air traffic impact over the mission is provided. Simulation results over real air traffic data show how this approach could be useful for future common management of piloted and non-piloted air traffic.

Augmented Reality in the Control Tower: A Rendering Pipeline for Multiple Head-Tracked Head-up Displays

The purpose of the air traffic management system is to accomplish the safe and efficient flow of air traffic. However, the primary goals of safety and efficiency are to some extent conflicting. In fact, to deliver a greater level of safety, separation between aircrafts would have to be greater than it currently is, but this would negatively impact the efficiency. In an attempt to avoid the trade-off between these goals, the long-range vision for the Single European Sky includes objectives for operating as safely and efficiently in Visual Meteorological Conditions as in Instrument Meteorological Conditions. In this respect, a wide set of virtual/augmented reality tools has been developed and effectively used in both civil and military aviation for piloting and training purposes (e.g., Head-Up Displays, Enhanced Vision Systems, Synthetic Vision Systems, Combined Vision Systems, etc.). These concepts could be transferred to air traffic control with a relatively low effort and substantial benefits for controllers’ situation awareness. Therefore, this study focuses on the see-through, head-tracked, head-up display that may help controllers dealing with zero/low visibility conditions and increased traffic density at the airport. However, there are several open issues associated with the use of this technology. One is the difficulty of obtaining a constant overlap between the scene-linked symbols and the background view based on the user’s viewpoint, which is known as ‘registration’. Another one is the presence of multiple, arbitrary oriented Head-Up Displays (HUDs) in the control tower, which further complicates the generation of the Augmented Reality (AR) content. In this paper, we propose a modified rendering pipeline for a HUD system that can be made out of several, arbitrary oriented, head-tracked, AR displays. Our algorithm is capable of generating a constant and coherent overplay between the AR layer and the outside view from the control tower. However a 3D model of the airport and the airport’s surroundings is needed, which must be populated with all the necessary AR overlays (both static and dynamic). We plan to use this concept as a basis for further research in the field of see-through HUDs for the control tower.

3D Trajectory Optimization for UAS Insertion in Civilon Segregated Airspace

The use of UAS (Uninhabited Aerial System) in civil missions addresses quite a number of questions related to safety, security and economics, but the most critical challenge the civil UAS will face is the insertion into civil airspace. Avoiding collisions between aircrafts, expediting and maintaining an orderly flow of air traffic are very important goals for Air Traffic Management (ATM). The methodology we propose matches aeronautical science and operation research with ATM constraints and it is based on a two phases procedure: strategic and tactical. The strategic phase is based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming !

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN ATC DISTRIBUTED TRAINING SYSTEM

The current development of an “European Air Traffic Management Network” is emphasizing the role of training activities for controllers. The most advanced training centers are equipped with tower, radar and flight simulators in which all the phases of air traffic control process (including the pilot’s condition) can be reproduced with an high degree of realism. Therefore, these systems mostly operate stand alone not exploiting the challenge of connecting single platforms in a unique distributed environment. In this paper a distributed training system is designed and experimented. It includes traffic simulation, flight simulation and real time voice communications. Air traffic in approach, landing and ground operations is simulated in a virtual air field and displayed on a table-top interface. One of the flight animations is performed in real time connecting the table-top with a FFS (Fixed Flight Simulator). The other planes which animate the environment follow recorded paths. Once the simulation is performed, training activities continue using an off-line virtual debriefing tool of the simulated ATC process. The whole system aims at providing the controller with the awareness about the tasks performed by pilots and their consequences on the ATC scenario development.

Evaluation of Augmented Reality Tools for the provision of Tower Air Traffic Control using An Ecological Interface Design

one of the major problems faced by the growth of air traffic in the last decade is the limited capacity of the runway especially during low visibility procedures (LVP) due to fog and bad weather. To solve this issue, the project “Resilient Synthetic Vision for Advanced Control Tower Air Navigation Service Provision” (RETINA) project, a two-years exploratory research project, under SESAR2020 program [1], proposes to use new Synthetic Vision (SV) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies for the tower controllers to allow them to conduct safe operations under any Meteorological Conditions while maintaining a high runway throughput equal to good visibility. In this paper we introduce the Ecological Interface Design (EID) which investigates the potential and applicability of SV tools and Virtual/Augmented Reality (V/AR) display techniques for the Air Traffic Control (ATC) service provision by the airport control tower. We explain how the EID framework can be used in RETINA, we experiment the framework on a suitable airport and we provide the EID results comparing, normal and LVP conditions with operations using RETINA technologies. Keywords-component; Ecological Interface Design, runway capacity, Syntetic Vision, Augmented Reality.

Augmented Reality for the Control Tower: The RETINA Concept

The SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) Joint Undertaking has recently granted the Resilient Synthetic Vision for Advanced Control Tower Air Navigation Service Provision project within the framework of the H2020 research on High Performing Airport Operations. Hereafter, we describe the project motivations, the objectives, the proposed methodology and the expected impacts, i.e. the consequences of using virtual/augmented reality technologies in the control tower.