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Experimental Evaluation of a Coplanar Airborne Separation Display
Abstract and Figures
Two experiments, an active conflict resolution task and a passive situation awareness assessment, were conducted that compared two versions of a constraint-based coplanar airborne separation assistance display. A baseline display showed a maneuver space based on 2-D projections of traffic and performance constraints. A second augmented display also incorporated cutting planes that take the dimension orthogonal to the projection into account, thereby providing a more precise visualization of traffic constraints. Results showed that although pilots performed well with either display, the augmented display scored consistently better in terms of performance, efficiency of conflict resolutions, the amount of errors in the initial resolutions, and the level of situation awareness compared with the baseline display. On the other hand, more losses of separation were found with the augmented display, as pilots tried to maximize the maneuvering efficiency according to the precision with which constraints were visualized.
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Supplementary resources (2)
Data
March 2016
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March 2016
... In the past decades we developed several ecological interfaces for the flight deck. Examples are a Total Energy management display for basic aircraft symmetrical flight control, that enables pilots to understand and act on exchanging their aircraft potential and kinetic energy [20], Separation Assistance displays that allow pilots to better understand and act on other traffic [21][22][23][24], an ecological Synthetic Vision display [25][26][27], and a display to manipulate fourdimensional (position and time) aircraft trajectories [28,29] We also explored various EID designs for air traffic controllers in current and future air traffic management environments [16,17,[30][31][32][33], and controllers of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles [34]. We will discuss two examples of our work in the next sections, focusing on the aircraft separation task performed by pilots in the cockpit, or by air traffic controllers on the ground. ...
... Figure 4(a) shows the ecological ASAS display, in its most elementary form: a two-dimensional semicircular presentation used as an overlay on the current Navigation Display, Fig. 3 (righ-hand display). Later we also developed vertical [48], co-planar [23,24] and 3-D orthogonal [22] presentations. Figure 4(b) shows the display elements. ...
The purpose of human-machine systems design is to develop interfaces and automation tools which support human operators in performing effective, efficient and safe work. An important prerequisite for the latter is that operators understand the process under control, are aware of what is happening, and have sufficient means to act on the process appropriately. In this chapter, which is an extension of our CHIRA’2017 paper [1], we discuss the ecological approach we adopted to design human-machine systems in aviation. We focus in particular on what, in our opinion, operator situation awareness actually means, and how to improve it. The aircraft separation task will be discussed, using two examples which show how novel visualizations and tools can support pilots and air traffic controllers in their decision making.
... Results from the study found that haptic feedback improved performance without an associated increase in workload. Similar performance, situational awareness and workload benefits have been found in studies involving the use of haptic feedback cues to support path following and separation management of unmanned aerial vehicles [19,20] and motorway driving [21]. However, no studies have investigated the benefit of haptic feedback provided to pilots in the context of manoeuvring aircraft within the airport terminal area. ...
Flight crews’ capacity to conduct take-off and landing in near zero visibility conditions has been partially addressed by advanced surveillance and cockpit display technology. This capability is yet to be realised within the context of manoeuvring aircraft within airport terminal areas. In this paper the performance and workload benefits of user centred designed visual and haptic taxi navigational cues, presented via a head-up display (HUD) and active sidestick, respectively, were evaluated in simulated taxiing trials by 12 professional pilots. In addition, the trials sought to examine pilot acceptance of side stick nose wheel steering. The HUD navigational cues demonstrated a significant task-specific benefit by reducing centreline deviation during turns and the frequency of major taxiway deviations. In parallel, the visual cues reduced self-report workload. Pilot’s appraisal of nose wheel steering by sidestick was positive, and active sidestick cues increased confidence in the multimodal guidance construct. The study presents the first examination of how a multimodal display, combining visual and haptic cues, could support the safety and efficiency in which pilots are able to conduct a taxi navigation task in low-visibility conditions.
... Previous studies in ATC [34,35,36] have evaluated the capabilities of the SSD concept for estimating metrics for airspace complexity and controller workload. Several SSD-based interfaces, in two and three dimensions, have emerged for ATC [37,38] and some have been successfully evaluated as a decision-support tool for pilots, in self-separation tasks [39,40,41]. Recently, the basic, state-based, SSD has been evaluated in studies focusing on basic ATC conflict detection and resolution (CD&R). ...
Air traffic controller workload is considered to be a limiting factor for further air traffic growth. To reduce workload, increased automation levels and novel decision-support tools are being investigated. This Paper describes the adaptation and evaluation of a previously developed interface, called the Solution Space Diagram, in a route merging task. It portrays both constrained and unconstrained speed and heading combinations and enables the controller, by means of direct manipulation, to safely vector aircraft. The authors hypothesized that this interface enables controllers to use it in their own preferred way, supporting their skills and strategies, reducing their workload. A preliminary experiment was conducted in which 12 participants, grouped according to expertise level, controlled a sector and were faced with different levels of traffic in a route merging task. Results show that the interface aids in finding merging solutions faster; a significant reduction in the number of commands and in perceived workload was observed. The participants changed their strategy to perform less vectoring and issue route interceptions at an earlier stage, without affecting aircraft separation. These changes were also observed with the professional controllers, although they showed to be more conservative to the use of the diagram. This Paper justifies experimentation with a larger number of participants and in a setup of higher operational realism.
... Essentially, the SSD connects conflict situations with all possible actions to solve those situations, all in one diagram, thereby making it an ideal candidate as a learning feature. Numerous previous studies that have used the SSD as a decision-support tool have shown that it contains sufficient information concerning an air traffic situation to make an informed decision regarding conflict resolution [11,[13][14][15][16]. Learning from an image can be advantageous as it serves two purposes. ...
Lack of trust and lack of acceptance caused by strategic mismatches in problem-solving have been identified as obstacles in the introduction of workload-alleviating automation in air traffic control. One possible way to overcome these obstacles is by creating automation capable of providing personalized advisories conformal to the individual controller. This paper focuses on performing an exploratory investigation into the tools and methodology required for creating conformal automation. Central in the creation of individualized prediction models is the combination of a visual feature, capturing traffic situations, and a tailored convolutional neural network model trained on individual controller data recorded from a human-in-the-loop simulation. The main advantage of using a visual feature is that it could facilitate “transparency” of the machine learning model. Results show that the trained models can reasonably predict command type, direction, and magnitude. Furthermore, a correlation is found between controller consistency and achieved prediction performance. A comparison between individual-sensitive and general models showed a benefit of individually trained models, confirming the strategy heterogeneity of the population, which is a critical assumption for personalized automation. Future research should be done in refining the model architecture, finding richer visual features that capture the breadth of human decision-making behavior and feedback model outputs back to individuals for measuring controller agreement.
... The accuracy of trajectories calculated by both onboard and ground-based Trajectory Predictors (TPs) is affected by uncertainties and errors in estimating the wind forecast [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], and aircraft performance [30,34,[36][37][38][39]. Furthermore, variations in pilot response in commanding the autopilot or configuration Introduction the spacing task to the flight desk using airborne self-spacing [29,47,[53][54][55][56][57]. Using airborne self-spacing, ATC uses a ground-based TP and/or intent information from arriving aircraft to sequence and space arrival traffic by providing a time-based or distance-based constraint. ...
During today’s aircraft descents, Air Traf?c Control (ATC) commands aircraft to descend to specific altitudes and directions to maintain separation and spacing from other aircraft. When the aircraft is instructed to maintain an intermediate descent altitude, it requires engine thrust to maintain speed, leading to increased fuel burn and noise being produced. By eliminating these level ?ight segments, fuel consumption, noise and gaseous emissions can be reduced as aircraft can perform the descent at an engine-idle thrust setting. The aircraft will then ?y a continuous descent, or Continuous Descent Operations (CDO), which at the same time raises the altitude pro?le, reducing the experienced noise levels at ground level. Today, CDO’s are operationally in use at various major airports, such as Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and London Heathrow. Due to dif?culties in predicting aircraft trajectories and time of arrival when performing CDOs, ATC needs to add additional spacing buffers to assure proper spacing between aircraft. As a result, airport capacity is reduced, limiting the use of CDOs to hours of low capacity demand. Researchers investigated various concepts in an aim to improve the predictability of CDOs to maintain airport capacity during CDOs. However, many of these concepts require additional thrust to correct for deviations. Therefore, this research developed a new CDO concept, named Time and Energy Managed Operations (TEMO), that allows an aircraft to perform accurate 4D engine-idle descents using energy principles. TEMO uses the principles of energy to correct deviations (replanning) without the need for additional thrust and simultaneously adhering to time constraints for spacing and sequencing. The concept uses an optimization algorithm to minimize thrust and speedbrake use and to calculate accurate trajectories. The algorithm uses energy management by exchanging kinetic and potential energy by controlling the elevator to correct deviations. Sustained deviations are corrected for through either strategic replanning, when deviations exceed a prede?ned boundary, or using tactical replanning, which instantaneously corrects deviations. To improve ?ight accuracy and maintain acceptable workload levels, a TEMO descent is ?own using the autopilot and auto-thrust systems. However, selection of ?aps and gear, and commanding the autopilot are examples of actions that are still performed by the pilot. The TEMO concept should be validated for different conditions to verify whether CDOs can be ?own using energy management and whether the concept can cope with various disturbances. A study should verify whether environmental impact is reduced while the various replanning methods should be compared. Various errors could be arti?cially introduced to evaluate to what extent energy management alone can correct errors and in what scenarios thrust or speedbrakes are required. Moreover, the role of the human pilot in the TEMO concept should be evaluated. The human pilot introduces additional uncertainties that affect the ?own descent. Another uncertainty during descent is wind and affects the trajectory accuracy greatly. Hence, can we improve wind estimation to enhance trajectory prediction? This thesis addresses these topics and questions. A ?rst experiment involved a fast-time batch simulation performed in MATLAB and aimed at identifying TEMO’s environmental bene?ts and ability to correct deviations and errors using strategic replanning. Deviations result from modeling errors in the Trajectory Predictor (TP) and algorithm to simplify trajectory prediction. A comparison of baseline scenarios between TEMO descents and current step-down descents showed that TEMO reduces the 65 dB and 75 dB Sound Exposure Level (SEL) contour areas by 20% and 13%, respectively. Moreover, a reduction in fuel used was achieved between 11% and 20% for the descent. When considering fuel use per ?ight time, the reduction is slightly reduced to values between 9% and 16%. Gaseous emissions were effectively reduced by approximately 33–47%. The comparison also showed that without additional errors, no replanning was required to correct deviations that result from modeling errors. Next, descents were simulated with introduced time, energy and wind estimation errors to evaluate how strategic replanning corrects such errors during descent. Without using additional thrust, a time error window of 8–16 seconds was achieved using energy management only. The actual dimensions of this time window depends on the wind estimation error. By allowing TEMO to command minimized amounts of thrust and speedbrakes, the algorithm was able to calculate a new trajectory that allowed the aircraft to arrive 30 seconds earlier and later than originally planned. In some extreme scenarios, the time deviation at the Initial Approach Fix (IAF) exceeded the 5 seconds required accuracy prescribed by the Required Time Performance (RTP). These larger time deviations primarily result from wind estimation errors that negatively affect time and energy performance. This continuous wind error resulted in multiple trajectory recalculations to correct for time and energy deviations. This experiment also compared results of descents ?own using strategic replanning with descents ?own using hybrid replanning under wind conditions. This hybrid replanning method used a 4D-speed controller to continuously (tactically) correct for time deviations and used a strategic replan before Terminal Maneuvering Area (TMA) entry to correct for energy deviations. The results showed that the 4D-controller effectively minimizes time deviations at the IAF with minimum cost to fuel use and noise contours, even when a wind estimation error is present. Hence, the tactical controller is ef?cient at correcting deviations resulting from a continuous disturbance. However, hybrid replanning showed larger energy deviations at localizer intercept which were not corrected using a replan but corrected upon glideslope intercept by the autopilot. Therefore, hybrid replanning should use stricter energy boundaries to reduce energy (and altitude) deviations when the aircraft approaches the localizer. The fast-time simulations on TEMO performance included a zero-delay pilot response model that executed pilot tasks, such as con?guration changes, perfectly. Hence, the question remained how variations in pilot response to manual actions affect TEMO performance. This question was addressed in a real-time experiment with pilots in the loop. This experiment also evaluated what information support pilots best to perform accurate TEMO descents and minimize variations in pilot response. Three Human-Machine Interface (HMI)’s were developed that provide support information during TEMO descents and differed in level of information displayed. Pilots preferred the HMI variant that included a timer to support accurate selection of ?aps and gear, and responded that workload was acceptable. This con?guration timer, however, did not signi?cantly reduce time deviations at the runway threshold but reduced the variance in delay of setting con?gurations. For comparison the pilot ?own scenarios were also ?own using a zero-delay pilot response model to investigate investigation of the effects of variations in pilot response on environmental impact and TEMO performance. A comparison of these simulations showed that human response had little effect on noise contour levels and Nitrogen Oxide emissions of a TEMO descent, while the difference in time deviation with respect to the automated runs was small. Consequently, pilots were suf?ciently informed to perform their actions. The comparison also indicated that without delays in performing pilot actions, the aircraft did not arrive exactly on time either. This resulted from simpli?cations in modeling of aircraft dynamics in the TEMO algorithm and TP and guidance errors while following the prescribed speed-pro?le. In general, the aircraft arrived early and close to the early boundary of the RTP at the runway threshold for pilot ?own scenarios. This raises the question whether an RTP of 2 seconds is achievable in real life. The guidance and planning functions should be improved to reduce this offset to be able to obtain similar time accuracies in less favorable wind conditions. The analysis of all results showed that the energy deviation at the moment of intercepting the glideslope signi?cantly in?uences the time of arrival for the automated runs, while for the human runs this effect was slightly smaller. This implies that to arrive exactly on time at the runway threshold, the energy deviation at glideslope intercept should be reduced and corrections during glideslope descent should be made possible. The results from both experiments showed that TEMO is sensitive to disturbances and errors. The batch study showed that wind estimation errors contribute greatly to time and energy deviations. For this reason, it is expected that using accurate wind estimation data in the TEMO algorithm will reduce trajectory deviations. Today, aircraft primarily rely on coarse and slowly updated wind estimates resulting in gross estimates of the prevailing wind when predicting the own trajectory. Therefore, a novel method for real-time estimation of a wind pro?le was developed, named Airborne Wind Estimation Algorithm (AWEA) that increases the temporal and spatial resolution of wind estimates. AWEA uses data transmitted by nearby aircraft to construct high resolution real-time wind pro?le estimates. The AWEA algorithm uses a Kalman ?lter to relate all received measurements to the own trajectory and reduce measurement noise. The wind estimation algorithm performance was evaluated using Mode-S derived meteorological data from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Using these wind observations, the AWEA algorithm showed an Root Mean Square (RMS) in the wind estimation error of 1.35 KTS along the own trajectory, which is lower than the observed RMS measurement error of 1.94 KTS. Relating the measurements to the own trajectory also proved bene?cial in reducing wind estimation errors. In another experiment, estimated wind pro?les along the own trajectory constructed by AWEA showed to improve spacing performance during approach. The TEMO experiments showed promising results as clear bene?ts to the environment have been identi?ed whilst the aircraft adheres to time constraints accurately. However, some issues require further investigation before TEMO could be used in real-life. TEMO was designed for the Airbus A320 ?ying straight-in descents and evaluated in a single aircraft environment. Future work should investigate TEMO’s use in other aircraft types, include turn dynamics, and realistic wind and turbulence conditions. AWEA should be integrated with TEMO to reduce deviations resulting from wind. Next, an experiment should investigate capacity, and spacing and separation between multiple aircraft performing TEMO descents. To improve TEMO time performance at the runway, TEMO should be able to perform replans while on the glideslope. Since energy management cannot be performed while the aircraft descents down the glideslope, deviations could be corrected using ?ap-scheduling such that engine-thrust remains idle, or a tactical component could use thrust and speedbrakes to simultaneously control time and energy. Trajectory prediction will always include modeling errors as we cannot model the world explicitly, hence, effort should be put into reducing these errors to a minimum. Since strategic replanning can be considered as an open-loop (or slow, intermittent) control system, modeling errors will always result in deviations from the planned trajectory. To improve time performance by minimizing time deviations due to modeling errors and unknown disturbances, a closed-loop system should be used. Hybrid replanning augments strategic replanning with a fast closed-loop speed controller. Hence, research should investigate how hybrid replanning can be further improved and evaluate the human factors aspects of hybrid replanning in a real-time experiment with pilots in control.
... Figure 3 shows the analysis for one pair of ships that are in conflict. There is a conflict if the The construction of the conflict is explained in more detail by (29). ...
In shipping, collision risk is a serious safety threat. Risk probability estimations used for policy making are derived from trac density statistics, largely ignoring the decision making process on board. Conict detection and resolution on board is done using rather rudimentary but eective mental-model based techniques. In this article the authors analyse trac using the concept of complexity. The actual geometry of the ships involved in the conict denes how well the crews on board can resolve the conict. This geometry is transformed into a complexity value. A reliable detection and resolution of conicts by human operators decreases in certain situations. A previous study has shown that when complexity reaches a threshold, the risk of a near miss increases signicantly. In this study three actual collisions at open sea are analysed. It will be shown that situations of high complexity, which decreases human reliability, can be predicted well in advance, allowing for a safe resolution. The technique also allows for alerting and a decision support for the crew.
... Not in all previous projects the full range of the closed loop was considered. Several projects on ecological interfaces for vehicle control [27], [30], [33], [46], a single temporal scope was selected to create the problem formulation, resulting in support for work over a specific time span, in a specific mode of flight operation (manual or using the autopilot) and effectively for one or more of the nested control loops. ...
Ecological interface design (EID) was originally developed in the context of process control but has been extended into many domains where technology has resulted in both changing work demands and increased opportunities for improved interface applications. This paper gives an overview of the application of the EID to the control of vehicle locomotion, either from within the vehicle, as a driver or a pilot, or from the outside, as an operator or a (air traffic) controller. It discusses lessons learned from the application of the EID for the vehicle locomotion control task and focuses on how the methodology can be applied to this domain. Specific issues identified are that the planning and control of a vehicle simultaneously spans multiple time scales and that the interface must be designed considering the format in which the control input is defined. Also, due to the extensive standardization of the instrumentation and training certification, changes introduced by the new displays must initially be additional to the existing displays. Chosen representations must also be shown in a format that matches the current instrumentation and the directly observable outside world.
... This representation is believed to support a more comprehensive understanding of the system from the low-level physical states to the higher-level functional purposes of the system [21]. The efficacy of the EID framework has been demonstrated in nuclear power [12], [22], aerospace [23]- [25], hydrocarbon and petrochemical processing [26], [27], and command and control [28]. ...
Group-view displays (GVDs) have become prominent features in modern nuclear control rooms (NCR). Despite widespread implementation, their efficacy has yet to be thoroughly evaluated. This paper presents a full-scale nuclear simulator study that compared the current state of the art in NCR GVDs against experimental alternatives. The results indicate that the current state of the art in NCR GVDs can be improved upon. An experimental display configuration (redundant displays) yielded higher communication scores than the standard NCR GVD configuration (large-screen displays). Furthermore, operators using experimental display types (ecological displays) exhibited superior situation awareness compared to those using contemporary NCR displays (advanced displays). The implications, limitations, and recommendations for future work are discussed.
Lack of trust has been identified as an obstacle in the introduction of workload-alleviating automation in air traffic control. The work presented in this paper describes a concept to generate individual-sensitive resolution advisories for air traffic conflicts, with the aim of increasing acceptance by adapting advisories to different controller strategies. These personalized advisories are achieved using a tailored convolutional neural network model that is trained on individual controller data. In this study, a human-in-the-loop experiment was performed to generate datasets of conflict geometries and controller resolutions, with a velocity obstacle representation as a learning feature. Results show that the trained models can reasonably predict command type, direction and magnitude. Furthermore, a correlation is found between controller consistency and achieved prediction performance. A comparison between individual-sensitive and general models showed a benefit of individually trained models, confirming the strategy heterogeneity of the population, which is a critical assumption for personalized automation.
Today's crowded airspace burdens both the pilot and controller with a heavy workload pertaining to the maintenance of conflict-free flight. Conflict detection and resolution (CD&R) tools have become a key element in modern flight systems and future airspace concept simulations. In this paper we describe an automated resolution tool that was developed at NASA Ames Research Center as part of an experimental evaluation of the Distributed Air-Ground concept. The tool is based on an analysis of conflict geometry and was developed as an intent (i.e. flight plan) resolution system. A key simplifying concept used in the development of airborne automated resolutions is the notion of "Rules of the Road" -a set of rules that uniquely assigns responsibility for the mitigation of a conflict. This paper outlines the challenges in developing such an automated resolution tool, as well as the lessons learned and the limitations observed.
In the past, several display concepts have been developed, as aids in the task of airborne self-separation. In several of these display concepts, the interface helps the pilot solve the conflict, as opposed to automation providing an explicit resolution. Especially in this case of manual problem solving, (implicit) interaction between the actors in a conflict becomes an important factor. An experiment was conducted to evaluate an EID-inspired, constraint-based separation assistance display, where all aircraft in each conflict were controlled by pilot subjects. In the experiment, several conflict scenario's have been evaluated, where coordination between pilots could either follow implicitely from the conflict geometry presented by the interface, or, require additional, explicit rules ("rules of the air") to be solved in a coordinated fashion. In the current ATM concepts for unmanaged airspace, aircraft will fly completely predetermined 4D trajectories, where automation will provide resolution advisories for traffic (or other) conflicts that may result from uncertainties that arise during flight (RTCA, 2002; SESAR Consortium, 2007). In this situation, the pilot's task will be one of monitoring separation, and selecting and applying resolution advisories, provided by the automation. He should, however, be able to judge the fidelity of a proposed resolution, and be able to intervene in case the automation fails. Furthermore, because conflicts will be resolved in a decentralized fashion, determining the resolution to a conflict will require coordination between the actors in that conflict. This means that for automated, as well as manual conflict resolution, predictability of decisions will be essential to guarantee an acceptable level of safety. In situations where there is not enough time for negotiation, implicit coordination will be required, e.g., by following a predetermined set of rules that dictate which aircraft should maneuver, and how it should maneuver. In worst-case scenarios, pilots will have to manually determine resolution maneuvers, for instance when the automation has failed, or other reasons why a pilot decides to resolve the conflict manually. This poses limits on the complexity of the coordination rules. For automated resolution advisories, high rule complexity can make it difficult for pilots to understand the rationale behind resolution advisories, potentially resulting in non-conformance and distrust of the system (Schild & Kuchar, 2000; Lee & Moray, 1992; Parasuraman & Riley, 1997). For adequate situation awareness, and proper interaction with automated systems, and between actors in a conflict, it is therefore necessary for regulation and automation to be transparent and understandable to the operator. The work presented in this paper is part of an ongoing study on the design of a separation assistance interface that can fulfil this role (van Dam, Mulder, & van Paassen, 2008; Heylen, van Dam, Mulder, & van Paassen, 2008; Ellerbroek, Visser, van Dam, Mulder, & van Paassen, 2011). The display concepts developed in this study try to realize proper support, by showing the implications of other traffic for the affordances of locomotion, and how they relate to constraints that result from ownship performance limits. By going beyond visualizations that relate only to the automation logic, these displays help pilots gain deeper knowledge of the functions and relations within the work domain. These displays should provide support in routine as well as unforeseen situations, where the pilot may have to rely on his own skills to resolve a conflict. Figure 1: The horizontal separation assistance display is based on a classical Boeing navigation display, with an added separation assistance overlay. The overlay provides a functional presentation of the affordances for aircraft airspeed and track angle using a horizontal projection of the three-dimensional velocity-vector affordance space.
A synthetic vision display is generally believed to support pilot terrain awareness. Many studies have shown, however, that the bias in perspective views can cause pilots to make judgment errors regarding the relative location, height, and ultimately the avoid- ance of terrain obstacles. Therefore, alerting systems are required to keep pilots at safe distances from the terrain. These systems provide explicit guidance commands to cir- cumvent terrain conflicts, which is far from optimal regarding pilot terrain awareness as it fails to present the rationale of the terrain separation problem. Consequently, this can affect the trust in and the reliance on these systems and pose a potential safety risk, especially in events or situations unfamiliar to the alerting system. This paper presents the design and evaluation of an extension to a synthetic vision display that aims to make the constraints of the alerting automation more transparent in order to help pilots better understand why, how, and when they should act. A pilot-in-the-loop experi- ment, using sixteen glass-cockpit pilots in a fixed-based flight simulator, showed that the constraint-based overlays indeed improved the overall pilot terrain awareness compared to a command-based display. The decision-making only improved in the unanticipated events introduced in the experiment. The utility of the energy angle was found to be im- portant for recognizing the off-normal events and to prevent terrain crashes. However, the pilot response time, flight safety in terms of low altitude flying, and pilot workload are better when using the command display. This indicates that a last-resort alerting and advisory system would still be required in operations at the periphery of safe system performance.
This paper describes a concept for a coplanar airborne self-separation display, which is designed to aid pilots in their separation task, by visualizing the possibilities for conflict resolution that the airspace provides. This study is a part of an ongoing research toward the design of a constraint-based 3-D separation assistance interface that can present all the relevant properties of the spatiotemporal separation problem. A display concept is proposed that presents speed, heading, and altitude action possibilities in two planar projections of the maneuver action space. The interface also visualizes how these projections interact with each other.
This book contains several hundred displays of complex data. Suggestions and examples are given for methods of enhancing dimensionality and density for portrayal of information. The first chapter outlines methods of moving away from single dimensional layout. Through the use of multi-dimensional images, greater clarity can be achieved and amount of information displayed increased. The following chapters cover the use of micro-macro design to illustrate detail, the layering of information and colour. The final chapter covers the display of space and time data. Examples used to illustrate the techniques covered include maps, the manuscripts of Galileo, timetables, dance movement notations, aerial photographs, electrocardiograms and computer visualisations. -R.C.Medler
Traditional airborne separation assistance tools provide pilots explicit resolution commands, similar to those used for short-term collision avoidance. However, they do not show the reasoning of the automation that deals with the separation problem, and therefore often fail to promote pilot traffic situation awareness. This paper describes a tactical navigation support tool in the vertical plane, designed to effectively deal with conflict situations while preserving travel freedom as much as possible. Based on Ecological Interface Design principles, the Vertical Separation Assistance Display is developed as an extension to the existing Vertical Situation Display. Functional information is presented via overlays that show pilots how their vertical maneuvering possibilities are constrained by own aircraft performance and limits imposed by surrounding traffic. A questionnaire-based evaluation, using twelve glass-cockpit experienced pilots, shows that the ecological overlays significantly improve pilot traffic awareness in vertical conflict situations.