News Release

Panel Recommends Types Of Automation For Air-Traffic Control

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- To improve both the safety and efficiency of air travel, more computer automation should be placed in the hands of air-traffic controllers, according to a new report issued by a National Research Council panel, chaired by a University of Illinois professor. But, the automation must be specifically designed with the needs of the human operators in mind, the panel cautions.

In the panel's first report, published last year, the role of human factors in the current air-traffic control system was examined. In its new report, "The Future of Air Traffic Control: Human Operators and Automation" (National Academy Press), the panel assessed different types of automation that the Federal Aviation Administration is considering, and made recommendations on how the automation should be implemented. The panel's three-year study was funded by the FAA.

"We drew a clear distinction between using computer technologies to automate such tasks as integrating and displaying information for the user, and automation that actually carries out actions for the user," said Christopher Wickens, head of the U. of I. aviation research lab and a professor of psychology and of industrial engineering. "The first type of automation increases the air-traffic controller's situation awareness, while the second type may decrease it."

Because automation in decision-making in air-traffic control is still too primitive to be reliable, the FAA should focus on developing tools to assist air-traffic controllers with understanding and predicting situations, as opposed to developing tools that control an aircraft's flight path, the panel said.

Another recommendation made by the panel concerns the locus of authority -- whether control of future air management should rest with air-traffic controllers or with pilots.

"The concept of 'free flight,' which gives pilots more responsibility for their own flight paths, poses an increased risk of decreasing situation awareness among air-traffic controllers," Wickens said. "The current air-traffic system works well because controllers have a set of structured air routes. They know where the planes should be because the pilots are obeying specific rules set up by the procedures."

In an extreme free-flight scenario, however, those air routes wouldn't exist, Wickens said. Controllers examining their displays would see what appears to be a random swarm of aircraft, making it much harder to detect -- and correct -- problems when they arise.

"The research on ground-based automation for air-traffic control is much more mature than the research on free-flight concepts," Wickens said. "Therefore, the panel recommended that authority remain on the ground, at least until the free-flight technology becomes more mature."

The panel also made recommendations concerning the implications of a system failure in the highly saturated air space of the future, and how automation should be introduced into the work space.

"The concept of human-centered automation is central to the success of automation in air-traffic control," Wickens said. "The technology must be carefully selected and implemented, with a keen sensitivity to keeping the human in the loop and enhancing situation awareness."

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