Eye movement analysis to evaluate ghosting and targeting aids for controller assistance

Abstract

Within the DLR-Project FAGI (Future Air Ground Integration) novel approach procedures are developed to guide arrival traffic to an airport. The concept allows pilots of modern aircraft to fly a fuel-optimized and noise-reduced Continous Descent Approach by exploiting 4D-navigation equipment. Less automated (unequipped) aircraft fly a conventional trombone pattern. Both aircraft streams are merged by an air traffic controller at a common “Late Merging Point”, only a few miles away from the runway. The FAGI concept promises significant operational benefits compared to today’s operations. However, it must be proven that approach controllers will be able to handle air traffic safely and reach a sufficient merging precision. Since the modified route structure makes manual spacing more demanding, different controller assistance tools are investigated as part of FAGI to support the operator in his/her future task. The paper studies aircraft ghosting and targeting on a radar display as potential controller assistance tools. Therein, synthetic placeholders and target labels of aircraft are projected onto another arrival route as a visual reference for merging and spacing aircraft. A human-in-the-loop microworld simulation was conducted, to study the differences and effects of ghosting and/or targeting solutions. Objective task performance, situation awareness (SAGAT), subjective ratings were recorded. A special focus of the paper is on the detailed discussion of eye- tracking data, which is used to study effects of the different automation levels on attentional distribution.