Human Systems Integration Division @ NASA Ames

In today's terminal operations, controller workload increases and throughput decreases when fixed standard terminal arrival routes (STARs) are impacted by storms. To circumvent this operational constraint, Krozel, Penny, Prete, and Mitchell (2004) proposed to use automation to dynamically adapt arrival and departure routing based on weather predictions. The present study examined this proposal in the context of a NextGen trajectory-based operation concept, focusing on the acceptability of this proposal to both pilots and controllers, as well as its effect on the controllers' ability to manage traffic flows.

Six controllers and twelve transport pilots participated in a human-in-the-loop simulation of arrival operations into Louisville International Airport with interval management requirements. Three types of routing structures were used: Static STARs (similar to current routing, which require the trajectories of individual aircraft to be modified to avoid the weather), Dynamic routing (automated adaptive routing around weather), and Dynamic Adjusted routing (automated adaptive routing around weather with aircraft entry time adjusted to account for differences in route length). Spacing Responsibility, whether responsibility for interval management resided with the controllers (as today), or resided with the pilot (who used a flight deck based automated spacing algorithm), was also manipulated. We collected subjective workload and acceptability ratings at the end of each trial. Participants also provided additional ratings and comments in a debrief questionnaire administered at the end of the simulation. Task decisions and behaviors as well as verbal communications were also recorded.

Dynamic routing as a whole was rated superior to static routing, especially by pilots, both in terms of workload reduction and flight path safety. Controllers also expressed a clear preference for dynamic routing. However, a downside of using dynamic routing was that the paths flown in the dynamic conditions tended to be somewhat longer than the paths flown in the static condition.