Pilot Performance in Trajectory-Based Operations Under Concepts of Operation That Vary Separation Responsibility Across Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, and Automation
- 5 January 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction
- Vol. 28 (2), 107-118
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2012.634761
Abstract
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.This publication has 10 references indexed in Scilit:
- Human Factors Measurement for Future Air Traffic Control SystemsHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2009
- Human-in-the-Loop Evaluation of Ground-Based Automated Separation Assurance for NextGenPublished by American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) ,2008
- Humans: Still Vital After All These Years of AutomationHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2008
- Situation Awareness, Mental Workload, and Trust in Automation: Viable, Empirically Supported Cognitive Engineering ConstructsJournal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making, 2008
- Does Situation Awareness Add to the Validity of Cognitive Tests?Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2006
- Mental Workload and Situation AwarenessPublished by Wiley ,2006
- The effects of level of automation and adaptive automation on human performance, situation awareness and workload in a dynamic control taskTheoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 2004
- Who Is Flying This Plane Anyway? What Mishaps Tell Us about Crew Member Role Assignment and Air Crew Situation AwarenessHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1999
- Toward a Theory of Situation Awareness in Dynamic SystemsHuman Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 1995
- Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical ResearchPublished by Elsevier BV ,1988