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The Federal Aviation Administration is working to modernize the systems used by air traffic controllers through the agency's vision of the Next Generation Air Transportation System. These systems are acquired through the FAA's Acquisition Management System (AMS) process. To date, human factors analysis is included in this process, though improvements can be made in the alignment of human systems integration principles with these systems engineering processes. This paper provides a recommended human systems integration framework to support air traffic management system design, and examines two potential cases in which the framework can be used to support the process.

Controller-pilot voice communications are a critical component of the Air Traffic Control (ATC) system, but outside of the human listening and responding that occurs with each transmission, they are an underutilized source of information for automation systems in the ATC domain. Automatic speech recognition is a continuously improving technology that can be used to tap into this information source for potential system benefits in a variety of ATC applications, such as monitoring live operations for safety benefit, conducting analysis on large quantities of recorded controller-pilot speech, or enabling automated simulation pilots to facilitate training and Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) simulation experiments. This paper describes how automatic speech recognition can be used in the ATC domain, the characteristics of the automatic speech recognition process and the ATC domain that make the problem unique, and the engineering process for effectively applying automatic speech recognition to ATC systems.Some of the information transmitted by voice communications is manually entered into automation systems in particular situations (e.g., a pilot entering a clearance into a flight management system or an en route controller entering an interim altitude in the Host Computer System), but for the most part, voice communication information is not captured in a way that is immediately text searchable or analyzable without intermediary human interpretation and processing. Controller-pilot voice communication, therefore, is an underutilized source of information within the ATC system, and automatic speech recognition can help unlock this potentially valuable information source.

The MITRE Corporation The MITRE Corporation was asked by the Federal Aviation Administration to perform an initial operational feasibility analysis on a speech recognition-based concept called the Closed Runway Operation Prevention Device (CROPD). This paper describes the activities conducted as part of the design and evaluation of the CROPD and outlines how a human-centered perspective of the system and operational environment informs the specifications of user interface design and system functionality.

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