Performance, situation awareness, and visual scanning of pilots receiving onboard taxi navigation support during simulated airport surface operation

Abstract

Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS) comprise a range of new technologies for both the flight deck and ground air traffic control and are supposed to enable increased safety and efficiency at presently highly congested major airports. The study evaluates an A-SMGCS flight deck human-machine interface (HMI) integrating controller pilot data link communication (CPDLC) messages, the display of surrounding traffic over an electronic airport surface map. Evaluation is done on the basis of subjective situation awareness rating, pilot taxi navigation performance and eye movement analysis. The study involved 49 commercial pilots who performed a series of high-fidelity landing-and-taxiing simulation trials under varied visibility and traffic scenarios. The HMI significantly increased subjective situation awareness and reduced the number of taxi navigation errors and unforced stops particularly in low visibility. Increased head-down times to the compelling HMI were found, however, detection of unexpected obstacles in the outside scene was not deteriorated as compared to conventional surface navigation support by airport paper charts.