A Human-in-the Loop Exploration of the Dynamic Airspace Configuration Concept

Homola, Jeffrey; Lee, Paul U.; Prevôt, Thomas; Lee, Hwa Soo; Kessell, Angela; Brasil, Connie; Smith, Nancy

doi:10.2514/6.2010-8293

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…In contrast to the prior papers on our 2009 study [8][9][10] , this paper focuses on the implications of the results in terms of feasible sector design and boundary change considerations for the FAM. Over-the-shoulder observations of the operations and feedback from the subject matter experts (SMEs) on the "goodness" of the airspace design have suggested that other cognitively-driven factors, such as the spatial relationship between upstream/downstream sectors, may also play a role when there is a high degree of airspace complexity associated with the reconfiguration.…”

Section: Other Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…A human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation was conducted in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at the NASA Ames Research Center in 2009 to address some of the questions posed above 8,9 . Traffic scenarios with varying types and severity of boundary changes (BCs) were used to test their impact on the controllers.…”

Section: Exploring the Feasibility Of Flexible Airspace Reconfigumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerations for Flexible Airspace Management

Lee

Prevôt

Homola

et al. 2010

10th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference

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In Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) operations, we expect that the demand-capacity balance can be achieved by selectively managing the airspace capacity in conjunction with managing the traffic demand. In Flexible Airspace Management (FAM), the airspace complexity can be assessed a few hours ahead in order to identify sectors that could exceed their defined traffic threshold as well as sectors that are under-utilized. Using various airspace optimization algorithms, airspace can be reconfigured to manage the existing traffic demand without moving aircraft away from their original user-preferred routes. A human-in-the-loop simulation study was conducted in 2009 to assess the impact of airspace reconfiguration on the controllers. The results from the objective data found that the acceptability of the boundary change and the associated workload were mainly affected by airspace volume change and aircraft that changed ownership. However, observations and subjective feedback have suggested that other cognitively-driven factors, such as spatial relationships between upstream/downstream sectors, may also play a role, especially in traffic situations where the airspace has only a few aircraft that change ownership but still has a high degree of airspace complexity associated with the reconfiguration. In this paper, we identify these factors and discuss the human factors issues that should be considered in designing the airspace and airspace transitions.

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Section: Other Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Exploring the Feasibility Of Flexible Airspace Reconfigumentioning

confidence: 99%

Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerations for Flexible Airspace Management

Lee

Prevôt

Homola

et al. 2010

10th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference

Self Cite

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“…A human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted in 2010 [2,3] in the Airspace Operations Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center to test the FAM concept, as a follow up to a previous study [4]. It comprised participants choosing airspace configuration from a set of algorithm-generated ones that best solved traffic imbalance problems due to weather deviation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

User selection criteria of airspace designs in Flexible Airspace Management

Lee

Jung

et al. 2011

2011 IEEE/AIAA 30th Digital Avionics Systems Conference

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Flexible Airspace Management (FAM) concept offers to dynamically modify the center/sector boundaries in such way that the airspace structure is reconfigured to better distribute unbalanced traffic demands across sectors. A set of airspace design algorithms were used in the human-in-the-loop simulation to assess possible benefits of the FAM concept. In the simulation, participants were instructed to pick an algorithm-generated airspace configuration from a set of configuration options that best solved the weather-induced traffic imbalance problems in the test airspace. Participants also rated the acceptability of the airspace designs that were generated by different algorithms. This paper explores ways to objectively quantify airspace characteristics of these algorithm-generated configurations using a set of benefits and airspace quality metrics and to compare them to the participants' acceptability ratings obtained from the simulation. Both benefits and airspace quality metrics were hypothesized to correlate with the participants' ratings. The results showed that participants' selection correlated mainly with the benefits metrics, while airspace quality metrics did not play a big role.

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“…Homola et al [32] showed how new on-demand reconfigurations could be implemented to balance sector traffic load and minimize over-capacity time periods without compromising safety, but at the cost of increasing controller task-load and workload ratings. Lee et al [15] and Jung et al [31] identified percent airspace volume and number of aircraft transferred as the primary contributors to reconfiguration workload for the same study.…”

Section: Reconfiguration Complexity Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing methods for dynamic airspace configuration

Zelinski

Lai

2011

2011 IEEE/AIAA 30th Digital Avionics Systems Conference

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This paper compares airspace design solutions for dynamically reconfiguring airspace in response to nominal daily traffic volume fluctuation. Airspace designs from seven algorithmic methods and a representation of current day operations in Kansas City Center were simulated with two times today's demand traffic. A three-configuration scenario was used to represent current day operations. Algorithms used projected unimpeded flight tracks to design initial 24-hour plans to switch between three configurations at predetermined reconfiguration times. At each reconfiguration time, algorithms used updated projected flight tracks to update the subsequent planned configurations. Compared to the baseline, most airspace design methods reduced delay and increased reconfiguration complexity, with similar traffic pattern complexity results. Design updates enabled several methods to as much as half the delay from their original designs. Freeform design methods reduced delay and increased reconfiguration complexity the most.

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A Human-in-the Loop Exploration of the Dynamic Airspace Configuration Concept

Cited by 13 publications

References 8 publications

Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerations for Flexible Airspace Management

Sector Design and Boundary Change Considerations for Flexible Airspace Management

User selection criteria of airspace designs in Flexible Airspace Management

Comparing methods for dynamic airspace configuration

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