The project research plan addressed the Human Performance issues, benefits and impacts of the SESAR paradigm shift towards increasing automation levels.
Most of the proposed changes deriving from the implementation of the SESAR solutions are expected to increase the pilot’s autonomy in controlling the route of their aircraft, including the requirement to maintain required separation between aircrafts. Flight time, delays and fuel expenditures are all expected to profit from such changes. At ground level, this corresponds to a change in the role of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs), shifting from active controller to monitoring one. To support Air Traffic Control operations, SESAR is working to introduce higher levels of automation, to the extent that the new generation of automated systems for Air Traffic Control (ATC) are expected to autonomously (or partially autonomously) manage decision-making and action-implementation tasks, generally carried out, at the current moment, by ATCOs. The latter are still responsible for running the ATC system safely, but their role would move from active control to monitoring of complex situations and managing unexpected system disruptions. It is vital to enhance the comprehension of the ATCOs responses to such role changing. STRESS dealt with it.
In its two years, STRESS developed the following technical contributions to tackle the aforementioned problems:
• Future ATC scenarios including highly automated supporting technologies, for assessing the changes in human roles in higher automation scenarios.
• Validated mental states measurement toolbox and neurophysiological signals fusion-based methodology to monitor with high time resolution the levels of vigilance, attention, stress, workload and cognitive control behaviour of Air Traffic Controllers in realistic operational environments.
• Guidelines for the design, implementation and training of innovative technologies that are compatible with human capabilities and limitations.
• A White Paper on follow-up research activities, in cooperation with other SESAR Exploratory Research projects.
The participation in various events has helped disseminate the STRESS approach. Aviation stakeholders provided positive feedback on the project results, and also gave advice for the application of the STRESS approach. In particular, they highlighted that the mental state measurement toolbox developed by STRESS could be applied at several ATM organizational levels, as follows:
• As a training tool, to assess the level of expertise and feed debriefings
• As an automation evaluation tool, useful to assess new systems from a HP perspective and also to compare the HP impact of different solutions
• For research in the area of safety and HP, for example ageing performance
• In operations, to support workers in difficult situations (stress, overload, fatigue, etc)
