Objective
The aim of the project is to measure stress and strain of air traffic controller s when using air traffic systems with future technology. In order to achieve thi s aim several real-time simulations implementing future ATC functionalities will be running under the DFS EATCHIP III compliant simulator with controllers comin g from 3 different countries. In order to isolate external factors in the analys is and simulation two HMI will be used in the project, both developed according to EUROCONTROL ODID IV recommendations, one created by the DFS (Deutsche Flugsic herung GmbH) and the other by AENA (Aeropuertos Espanoles y Navegaci A,rea). T he research will aim to discover whether there is a reduction in strain, as expe cted. Possible weaknesses of new systems will be identified followed by the deve lopment of suggestions on how to overcome the problems. In order to cover all th e aspects of the entire European strategy of aviation safety, controllers from d ifferent countries (Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, Hungarian Air Traffic and Airport Administration and DFS) will be involved. Actual stress symptoms will b e measured by the University of Dortmund with support from the National Aerospac e Laboratory (NLR) at the location of each partner.
During the intended simula tion reference data on actual stress symptoms will be evaluated to allow compari sons with future systems. The future systems are designed according to the recom mendations of the EATCHIP catalogue. Statements on the advantages and disadvanta ges of the new systems will be possible under the assumption that the traffic lo ad will increase by 20% - 50% up to 2005. The resulting information will be arra nged in a human-factors-checklist that will be applicable to different national ATC-systems
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Another aspect of the different simulation runs (systems with and without paper printed strips) concerns the visualisation of control capacit y, traffic distribution, conflict potential and the work load as measured by PUM A tool. From the analysis of the physiological measurements f stress realised du ring the simulation and the associated workload PUMA measurements, a first attem pt to establish the relationship between stress /strain and workload/capacity wi ll be done. An assessment of these relationships will facilitate the analysis of the impact of future technologies on AIRSPACE capacity. This relationship will be applied to a scenario case as an example in order to show how capacity improv ement by future technologies could be evaluated without the need of physiologica l measurements in the future. A further item for investigation will be the impac t of potential system malfunctions.
Both factors, system malfunctions as well as traffic situations will be varied systematically. Concerning tools for automa tion the replacement of printed paper strips by electronic flight progress data presented on electronic data displays will be evaluated. Furthermore influences on memory functionality and a possible overload of the controller with simultane ously reduced use of other information input channels will be assessed. Beside t he above mentioned aspects possible reductions of delays or shortened routings w ill be discussed. A concrete result of the project could be the improvement of t he present airspace organisation.
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
63225 Langen
Germany