Agenda "Aviator 2030 Final Event", Radisson BLU Hotel Hamburg Airport, 18th February 2010
The aviation industry is envisioning a tremendous growth of air traffic within the next two decades. New technologies and operational concepts will be the key enablers to accommodate the increasing amount of movements in a safe, efficient and environment friendly manner. Current working concepts reach from improved interoperability of national ATM systems, via satellite based navigation, collaborative decision making, and self separation of aircraft up to fully automated air-ground-space systems. It can be expected that the introduction of such concepts will have a significant impact on the working conditions and job requirements of future air traffic controllers and pilots, who were selected on traditional job profiles reflecting the current and past operational settings.
‘Aviator 2030’ deals with changes that will concern pilots and air traffic controllers in the future, with the objective of adapting selection profiles to suit future ability requirements.
In a first step, workshops with experienced pilots and air traffic controllers were conducted in order to reveal their expectations regarding future tasks, roles and responsibilities. Summing up workshop results, monitoring and teamwork in a highly automated workplace pose challenges to future aircraft operators (Bruder, Jörn & Eißfeldt, 2008).
Fig. 1: Phases of the project Aviator 2030
To reach the next level of analysis two experimental approaches are pursued with two simulations, called “SSAS” and “AviaSim”. Both simulations were developed within the project framework.
SSAS is developed to investigate the characteristics of good monitoring behaviour, a requirement identified by the workshop-experts as important in the future. Eye-tracking technology provides the main measures. SSAS may also provide the platform for a future selection instrument.
Directed by the workshop results, “AviaSim” is used as an ecological simulation environment to experimentally analyse future job requirement into more deep, integrating both ATC and Pilot workplaces.
SSAS – Simulation of Future Requirements for Human Operators in Aviation
Workshops with experienced pilots and air traffic controllers were conducted in order to reveal their expectations regarding future tasks, roles and responsibilities. Summing up workshop results, monitoring and teamwork in a highly automated workplace pose challenges to future aircraft operators (Bruder, Jörn & Eißfeldt, 2008). As a consequence, research should focus on the ability to monitor as one of the new core competencies necessary for success as an airline pilot or air traffic controller.
We developed two simulations, called “SSAS” and “AviaSim” representing future workplaces in aviation. Experiments with subjects operating in these simulated future workplaces help identify appropriate monitoring behaviour in highly automated environments.
SSAS stands for “Self Separation Airspace” and is a simplified and dynamic simulation of basic requirements for future flight operators (for further description of this tool, see Hasse, Bruder, Grasshoff & Eißfeldt, 2009). In doing so, test subjects need no prior experience as a pilots or air traffic controller. As workshop results suggest that research should focus on the ability to monitor as one of the new core competencies necessary for success as an airline pilot or air traffic controller, SSAS allows assessment of monitoring performance. As SSAS is linked to an eye tracker it is possible to investigate the ability to monitor of test subjects. The operator has either to monitor an automatic process or to control a system manually. Hence, we can research monitoring an automatic system and manual controlling the traffic separately.
Results allow for a timely adjustment of selection profiles and, thereby, for the development of future ability tests. Use of SSAS may, in the long term, make it possible to select candidates on the basis of predefined monitoring behaviour.
AviaSim – A New Simulation Platform with Multiple Actors
AviaSim should allow to investigate processes of the tactical decision making, task allocation, attention, monitoring, and information management of human actors working together collaboratively in a distributed team environment. The focus of our initial scenario scripts is on how to define the functionality of future board/ground human to human communication interfaces as well as how to integrate new automation systems in the future work processes.
The task scenario is to plan and execute effective separation of traffic by complying with the needs of the user while assuring separation minima. The authority for separation control should be transferred between ATCOs and pilots during the scenario. The different human actors will cooperate with particular assistance systems which can be attached or detached to the workplace (Concept of Control Sharing).
The airspace is sectored into managed and unmanaged areas separated by transition layers. Following specific handover procedures, separation authority will be transferred from ground to air or back from air to ground upon transitions between managed and unmanaged sectors (Concept of Control Transfer). When an aircraft is in self-separation mode, it will have to follow a certain set of rules to prevent the risk of loss of separation.
This en-route scenario challenges the crews’ abilities of planning ahead, situation awareness, communication, information management and decision making as well as their attitudes towards Compliance to Rules and Trust in Automation.
AviaSim is currently configured for up to nine aviator workplaces: one for an air traffic controller and eight for pilots. Additional traffic can be generated with pre-determined flight plans per experimental script files. Each workplace has the standard equipment with additional automatic assistance functionality to support tactical decision making and continuous monitoring tasks. Figure 1 displays a configuration with traffic information displays and collision warning functionality.
Publications
Bruder, C., Jörn, L. & Eißfeldt, H.: Aviator 2030 - When pilots and air traffic controller discuss their future. In A. Droog & T. D' Oliveira (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th EAAP Conference, Vol. 2, pp. 354-358, Valencia: EAAP, (2008).
Bruder, C., Eißfeldt, H., Hörmann, J., Jörn, L., Stern, C., Teegen, U. & Zierke, O.: Aviator 2030 - Fähigkeitsrelevante Aspekte zukünftiger ATM-Systeme aus Sicht beruflicher Experten Teil 1 Konzeptentwicklung, DLR Forschungsbericht 2009-02, Köln: DLR, (2009).DLR-Report (pdf, 1.2 MByte)
Eißfeldt, H.: Aviator 2030 - Ability requirements in future ATM Systems. In Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, pp. 112-117, Dayton, OH: Wright State University, (2009).
Eißfeldt, H.: Aviator 2030 - Bericht aus einem DLR-Projekt zu zukünftigen Fähigkeitsanforderungen. In G. Faber (Ed.), Die 4. Jetgeneration der Verkehrsflugzeuge - zunehmende Automatisierung, pp. 74-77, Darmstadt: FHP, (2009).
Hasse, C., Bruder, C., Grasshoff, D. & Eißfeldt, H.: Future ability requirements for Human Operators in Aviation. In D. Harris (Ed.), Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics, 8th International Conference, EPCE 2009, Held as Part of HCI International 2009, San Diego, USA, pp. 537-546, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, (2009).
Hasse, C., Bruder, C., Grasshoff, D. & Eißfeldt, H.: Future Ability Requirements for Operators in Aviation regarding Monitoring. In A. Lichtenstein, C. Stößel & C. Clemens (Hrsg), Der Mensch im Mittelpunkt technischer Systeme, 8. Berliner Werkstatt Mensch-Maschine-Systeme, Fortschritt-Berichte VDI, Reihe 22, Nr. 29, pp. 159-160,. Berlin: Zentrum Mensch-Maschine-Systeme der Technischen Universität Berlin, (2009).
Hasse, C., Bruder, C., Grasshoff, D. & Eißfeldt, H.: Using eye movement parameters to assess monitoring behavior for flight crew selection, In ECEM`09, 15th European Conference on Eye Movements, 23rd-27th August 2009, Southampton: University of Southampton, (2009).
Hörmann, H. J., Schulze-Kissing, D. & Zierke, O. & Eissfeldt, H.: Aviator 2030 - Veränderungen von Berufsanforderungen im zukünftigen Luftverkehrssystem, In 51. Fachausschusssitzung Anthropotechnik, 27.- 28. Oktober, Braunschweig, pp. 98-103., Braunschweig: DGLR, (2009).
Hörmann, H. J., & Zierke, O.: AVIATOR 2030 - Zukunftsszenarien. In D. Stelling (Ed.), IB-316-2008-01, pp. 7-11, Hamburg: DLR, (2008).
Hörmann, H. J., Schulze-Kissing, D. & Zierke, O.: Determining Job Requirements for the next Aviator Generation. In Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, pp. 118-123, Dayton, OH: Wright State University, (2009).
Schulze-Kissing, D., Zierke, O., Hörmann, H.-J. & Eißfeldt, H.: AviaSim: Eine PC-basierte Simulationsumgebung zur bord- und bodenseitigen Bewertung von Human-Factors-Auswirkungen zukünftiger ATM-Konzepte, In Vortrag 12. FHP Symposium St. Märgen, 18.-20. Mai 2009, FHP Darmstadt, (2009).
Zierke, O., Hörmann, H.-J., Schulze-Kissing, D. & Eißfeldt, H.: Evaluation eines Cockpit-Displays zur Darstellung des umgebenden Luftverkehrs, In S. Kain, D. Struve & H. Wandke (Hrsg.): Workshop-Proceedings der Tagung Mensch & Computer 2009, S. 281-283. Berlin: Logos, (2009).