Vernol Battiste

Taxiway Navigation and Situation Awareness (T-NASA) System: Problem, Design Philosophy, and Description of an Integrated Display Suite for Low-Visibility Airport Surface Operations

An integrated cockpit display suite, the T-NASA (Taxiway Navigation and Situation Awareness) system, is under development for NASAs Terminal Area Productivity (TAP) Low-Visibility Landing and Surface Operations (LVLASO) program. This system has three integrated components: Moving Map -- track-up airport surface display with own-ship, traffic and graphical route guidance; SceneLinked Symbology -- route/taxi information virtually projected via a Head-up Display (HUD) onto the forward scene; and, 3-D Audio Ground Collision Avoidance Warning (GCAW) system -- spatially-localized auditory traffic alerts. In this paper, surface operations in low-visibility conditions, the design philosophy of the T-NASA system, and the TNASA system display components are described.

A Cockpit Display Designed to Enable Limited Flight Deck Separation Responsibility

Cockpit displays need to be substantially improved to serve the goals of situational awareness, conflict detection, and path replanning, in Free Flight. This paper describes the design of such an advanced cockpit display, along with an initial simulation based usability evaluation. Flight crews were particularly enthusiastic about color coding for relative altitude, dynamically pulsing predictors, and the use of 3-D flight plans for alerting and situational awareness.

Development and Demonstration of a Prototype Free Flight Cockpit Display of Traffic Information

Two versions of a prototype Free Flight cockpit situational display (Basic and Enhanced) were examined in a simulation at the NASA Ames Research Center. Both displays presented a display of traffic out to a range of 120 NM, and an alert when the automation detected a substantial danger of losing separation with another aircraft. The task for the crews was to detect and resolve threats to separation posed by intruder aircraft. An Enhanced version of the display was also examined. It incorporated two additional conflict alerting levels and tools to aid in trajectory prediction and path planning. Ten crews from a major airline participated in the study. Performance analyses and pilot debriefings showed that the Enhanced display was preferred, and that minimal separation between the intruder and the ownship was larger with the Enhanced display. In addition, the additional information on the Enhanced display did not lead crews to engage in more maneuvering. Instead an opposite trend was indicated. Finally, crews using the Enhanced display responded more proactively, tending to resolve alerts earlier.

Trajectory-Oriented Operations with Limited Delegation: An Evolutionary Path to NAS Modernization

*† ‡ § ** †† This paper presents a concept named Trajectory Oriented Operations with Limited Delegation. The concept provides a framework for transforming NAS operations in line with global modernization trends. It enables the evolutionary introduction of trajectory oriented air traffic tools and airborne separation assistance systems. Specific implementation examples for several evolutionary phases are presented. The tools and procedures prototyping this concept will be further developed and tested in simulations at NASA Ames Research Center as part of the NextNAS project.

The Impact of Automation Assisted Aircraft Separation on Situation Awareness

This study compared situation awareness across three flight deck decision aiding modes. Pilots resolved air traffic conflicts using a click and drag software tool. In the automated aiding condition, pilots executed all resolutions generated by the automation. In the interactive condition, automation suggested a maneuver, but pilots had the choice of accepting or modifying the provided resolution. In the manual condition pilots generated resolutions independently. A technique that combines both Situation Global Assessment Technique and Situation Present Awareness Method was used to assess situation awareness. Results showed that situation awareness was better in the Manual and Interactive conditions when compared to the Automated condition. The finding suggests that pilots are able to maintain greater situation awareness when they are actively engaged in the conflict resolution process.

A Human -in -the -Loop Evaluation of Air -Ground Trajectory Negotiation

An integrated air ground simulation with commercial airline pilots a nd certified professional controllers was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center to evaluate a concept for air -ground trajectory negotiation. This concept was developed as part of the Distributed Air -Ground Trajectory Negotiation Project, which explores us e of new technology, including CPDLC and flight deck and ATC decision support tools, to accommodate user preferred trajectories. Two human -in -the -loop simulation studies were conducted in 2002 and 2003. The first study in 2002 focused on how an integration of air and ground side decision support tools (DSTs) with data link can potentially improve efficiency, capacity, and workload distribution. The second study in 2003 focused on pilot/controller interactions during a trajectory negotiation. The results fro m the 2002 study suggested that this concept allowed for more precise delivery, efficient flight paths, and lower controller workload, while the 2003 study demonstrated the feasibility of trajectory negotiation via data link. This paper summarizes these re sults, discusses critical factors that contribute to the success of the concept, and open issues that need to be understood in order to further the concept. Overall, integration of DSTs and data link seems to show great potential. The trajectory negotiatio n concept appears feasible but its potential for benefits needs further research.

Field Test of Video Game Trainer

A field study was conducted at the US Army Aviation Center to determine whether workload-coping and attention-management skills developed through structured video game experience would generalize to flight training. Three groups of 24 trainees were compared: (1) One received 10 hours of training on an IBM-PC version of Space Fortress, replicating an earlier study; (2) The second played a commerical video game (Apache Strike) for 10 hours which also required tracking, monitoring, situation assessment, and memory; (3) The third matched group receive no game training. Flight school records were monitored during the next 18 mos to compare performance of the three groups during initial flight training. Check ride ratings began to show an advantage for the group trained with Space Fortress by the Instrument stage of training, as predicted. Furthermore, attrition rates were lower for this group, replicating the results of an earlier study conducted by Gopher (1990) in the Israeli Air Force Flight School.

Toward single pilot operations: developing a ground station

This document describes the second human-in-the-loop study in a series that examines the role of a ground operator in enabling single pilot operations (SPO). The focus of this study was decision-making and communication between a distributed crew (airborne pilot and ground operator). A prototype ground station and tools designed to enhance collaboration were also assessed for further development. Eighteen crews flew challenging, off-nominal scenarios in three configurations: Baseline (current two-pilot operations) and SPO with and without Collaboration Tools. Subjective ratings were largely favorable to SPO; however, there was preference for the Baseline configuration. Crew comments suggest improvements to increase the usability of the collaboration tools.

AIR TRAFFIC CONCEPT UTILIZING 4D TRAJECTORIES AND AIRBORNE SEPARATION ASSISTANCE

Funding for this work was provided by the Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) project office of NASAs Airspace Systems Program. This paper presents a concept – with the potential for increasing airspace system-wide efficiency and safety – which combines strategic, 4-D userpreferred trajectories with tactical, Airborne Separation Assistance Systems (ASAS). First, prior research and concepts for improving air traffic management are reviewed. Second, the concept for integrating trajectory-orientation and airborne separation assistance is described. Using an example traffic scenario, we then examine how the conflicts might be resolved using A) current day tactical operations, B) current day tactical operations with airborne separation assistance added, and C) a pure trajectory-oriented approach.

Pilot Performance in Trajectory-Based Operations Under Concepts of Operation That Vary Separation Responsibility Across Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, and Automation

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will revolutionize the air traffic management system in the United States. NextGen will involve human operators interacting with new technologies in a complex system, making human factors and human–computer interaction considerations a major concern. The present study reports data from a human-in-the-loop simulation that evaluated pilot performance, workload, and situation awareness under one of three plausible NextGen concepts of operation. The concepts of operation differed with respect to the allocation of separation responsibility across human pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs), and automation. Pilots were asked to employ trajectory-based operations to perform weather avoidance maneuvers, an interval management task, and a continuous descent approach. Depending on the concept being tested, they were also given the responsibility of separation assurance (Concept 1) or received conflict resolutions from an ATC (Concept 2) or automated system (Concept 3). Overall, pilot performance on the various flight tasks was worse in Concept 3 than in Concepts 1 and 2. Although pilot workload did not differ across the three concepts, pilot situation awareness was highest in Concept 1, in which the pilots were given the most responsibilities. These findings suggest that keeping pilots engaged in separation assurance tasks may be preferable to having them rely on automation alone.