As part of the COCO project (Collaborative Operations in Control Rooms), simulation-based experiments will be carried out to investigate collaborative monitoring and decision-making in control centres.
Project description
European aviation's strategic research agenda has established that there is a need for research in the field of human factors when it comes to decision-making processes involving multiple actors. This will be taken up in the cross-institutional project COCO under the leadership of the psychology department of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine headquartered in Hamburg, DLR's German Earth Observation Centre and in particular also by the Institute of Flight Guidance in Braunschweig.
Experiments concerning collaborative monitoring and decision-making by operators of future air traffic systems are intended to advance the level of knowledge around the human factor in this area. In a simulation-based approach, COCO will include the design, implementation and analysis of studies on the efficiency of collaborative surveillance and decision-making processes. The project will assume a fixed location in a single control centre.
Team processes, particularly in smaller, highly qualified groups, must not be underestimated in their significance as regards work performance and satisfaction. Possible conflicts can be countered in a variety of ways (organisation of work, training, selection). Teams have the potential to overcome more complex and multi-layered problems with greater flexibility, productivity and creativity. In particular, in dynamic and complex work situations such as working in modern control centres, team members must react quickly and flexibly to changes to the tasks or to sudden events.
Objectives
The central approach of the COCO project is to observe the psychological demands on operators in control centres across all domains and to gain an understanding of the psychological demands, independent of domain, which could be taken into account in later selection procedures for control centre personnel. Alongside important task-related aspects, such as targets set by the organisation, safety and the smooth flow of air traffic, there are also significant aspects of the individual including factors to do with personality, individual capacity, professional knowledge and experience. All the aforementioned aspects will be analysed with regard to their influence on the quality of collaborative decision making processes. It will be assumed that individual skill and personality factors influence collaborative decision-making most of all when if there is no structured communication framework available.
DLR-Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrtmedizin (Lead) Deutschen Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum des DLR DLR-Institut für Flugführung