High-fidelity human-in-the-loop simulations as one step towards remote control of regional airports: A preliminary study

Abstract

The paper reports on an experimental work environment for simulating remote control of regional airports and initial results obtained by high fidelity human-in-the-loop simulations. At the Institute of Flight Guidance of the German Aerospace Centre a concept for remote control of regional airports was developed since 2002 and a corresponding experimental testbed realized, consisting of facilities for field testing at the Braunschweig research airport and a tower simulator extension for operational remote tower (RTO) simulations with controllers. Human-in-the-loop simulations were conducted, simulating Braunschweig airport to show the operational feasibility of the new working environment. Therefore two tower controllers handled traffic scenarios using a common 200-degree tower simulator, but also using the new work environment, the RTO (Remote Tower Operation)-Console. This setting allows a direct comparison of an evaluation of the RTO-Console and the tower simulator as work environment. Augmented vision aspects were implemented in the simulation runs at the RTO-Console. Moreover, a zoom camera with an automatic tracking function integrated in the work environment for remote control was evaluated. Subjective data from questionnaires and free interviews were gathered for each simulation run. Objective eye data were recorded for the simulation runs using the RTO-Console. The main result from the questionnaires depicts the work environment of the RTO-Console to be comparable with working in a tower simulator. The eye data show that most of the time (53%) the tower controller is looking at the area of interest in the simulated far view, which is in line with former work analyses. The results of the human-in-the-loop simulation suggest the feasibility of tower operation using the RTO-Console. For the operational deployment of remote control of small airports a stepwise validation using human-in-the-loop simulations is indispensable.