Supplementing Haptic Feedback in Flight Envelope Protection Through Visual Display Indications

Haptic cues on the side stick are a promising method to reduce loss of control in-flight incidents. They can be intuitively interpreted and provide immediate support, leading to a shared control system. However, haptic interfaces are limited in providing information, and the reason for cues may not always be clear to pilots. This study presents...

Evaluation of a Decision-Based Invocation Strategy for Adaptive Support for Air Traffic Control

Air traffic controller workload is a limiting factor in the current air traffic management system. Adaptive support systems have the potential to balance controller workload and gain acceptance as they provide support during times of need. Challenges in the design of adaptive support systems are to decide when and how to trigger support. The...

Augmented visual feedback: Cure or distraction?

Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of augmented feedback on participants’ workload, performance, and distribution of visual attention. Background: An important question in human–machine interface design is whether the operator should be provided with direct solutions. We focused on the solution space diagram (SSD),...

Exploring Short-Term Training Effects of Ecological Interfaces: A Case Study in Air Traffic Control

In many work domains, the push toward higher levels of automation raises the concern of diminishing human expertise. Ecological interfaces could help operators in retaining and potentially even in acquiring expertise as they are hypothesized to lead to a deeper understanding of the work domain. This study explores the short-term impact of...

Supporting Humans in Solving Multi-UAV Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problems

Real-time optimization of Vehicle Routing Problems (VRP) during mission operations raises concerns regarding obtaining a solution within a reasonable timeframe, especially in domains where operations cannot easily be paused and the number of control parameters is high. Humans, however, are heuristic problem solvers and could potentially...

Touchscreens for Aircraft Navigation Tasks: Comparing Accuracy and Throughput of Three Flight Deck Interfaces Using Fitts’ Law

Objective: Use Fitts’ law to compare accuracy and throughput of three flight deck interfaces for navigation. Background: Industry is proposing touch-based solutions to modernize the flight management system. However, research evaluating touchscreen effectiveness for navigation tasks in terms of accuracy and throughput on the flight deck is...

Ecological Interface Design for Vehicle Locomotion Control

Ecological interface design (EID) was originally developed in the context of process control but has been extended into many domains where technology has resulted in both changing work demands and increased opportunities for improved interface applications. This paper gives an overview of the application of the EID to the control of vehicle...

Ecological interface design: supporting fault diagnosis of automated advice in a supervisory air traffic control task

Future air traffic control will have to rely on more advanced automation to support human controllers in their job of safely handling increased traffic volumes. A prerequisite for the success of such automation is that the data driving it are reliable. Current technology, however, still warrants human supervision in coping with (data)...

Cross-sector transferability of metrics for air traffic controller workload

Air traffc controller workload is an important impediment to air transport growth. Several approaches exist that aim to better understand the causes for workload, and models have been derived to predict workload in new operational settings. These methods often relate workload to the diffculty, or complexity, that an average controller would have...

Ecological Interface Design: Sensor Failure Diagnosis in Air Traffic Control

Future air traffic control will have to rely on more advanced automation in order to support controllers in their job of safely controlling increased traffic volumes. A prerequisite for the success of such automation is that the underlying data driving it is reliable. Current technology, however, still warrants human supervision in coping with ...

Ecological Interface for Collaboration of Multiple UAVs in Remote Areas

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can be used to access remote areas, e.g., for surveillance missions. Collaboration between them can help overcome communication constraints by building airborne relay networks that allow beyond line of sight communication. This research investigates whether a single human operator can supervise multiple UAVs in a...