Air-ground Integration Dynamics in Exchange of Information for Control

TLDR: The experiment reported here was undertaken to characterize the impact of a shift in separation authority on controller performance in a complex center operation, and significant differences in both operational and subjective measures were found.

Abstract: The world community of aviation operations is engaged in a vast, system-wide evolution of procedures, technologies and services that significantly affect human/system integration. The nature of this evolution is relaxation of restrictions in air transport operations wherever feasible. The relaxation includes schedule control, route control, and, potentially, separation authority in some phases of flight, for example aircraft self-separation in enroute. The dynamic concept of operations provides new challenge to the human operators of that system. The human operators (pilots, air traffic controllers, and airline operations personnel) must monitor system performance as they do now, but also predict the impact of the distribution of authority and control that might result as a function of the airspace configuration, aircraft state or equipage, and other operational constraints [9, 10]. In order to safely and effectively define the new process and procedures for this evolving concept, the human operator’s performance must be clearly and consistently included in the design of the new operation and of any automation aiding that is proposed to help the operators in their distributed activities. The experiment reported here was undertaken to characterize the impact of a shift in separation authority on controller performance in a complex center operation. Controllers managed simulated air traffic in the OCALA sector of the Jacksonville Center. Controllers managed the traffic under conditions of full positive ground control under two operating conditions and two levels of separation authority being ceded to aircraft. Measurements were made across a range of operational and operator variables. Significant differences in both operational and subjective measures were found in response to the primary manipulation of control authority.