Intelligent Pilot Advisory System: The journey from ideation to an early system design of an AI-based decision support system for airline flight decks

The availability of more and more data from commercial aircraft, opens up new development potential for AI-based assistance systems on the flight deck. In this context, a number of research areas need to be addressed, including the interaction between AI and the cockpit crew. This concept paper discusses the need for an AI-based decision support system in the cockpit of commercial aircraft and provides an approach to realise it. To discuss the need for such a system, existing interviews with pilots were analysed and a subsequent ideation process is conducted to discuss possible applications for a new AI-based assistance system. The idea is then made more concrete by formulating use cases and a first proposal on how such a system could be implemented. The proposed assistance system is intended to serve as a research platform for exploring the human system integration aspects of AI-based applications, as finally demonstrated by two recent research examples

Assessment of Air Taxi Passenger Acceptance – Implementation and Initial Evaluation of a Mixed Reality Simulator

Urban air mobility paves new ways for public transport modalities like air taxis. To shape the operational concepts and the design of these air taxis, the acceptance and requirements of future passengers should be considered even in early stages of the development process. Within the HorizonUAM project, it is of interest to understand the effects of social presence, e.g. through on-board service personnel, on perceived comfort. These results help to develop concepts, how fully or mainly autonomous operations can be achieved that are accepted by users. As part of HorizonUAM, an air taxi simulator was implemented to assess the aforementioned passenger acceptance with regard to defined key criteria like presence of on-board personnel or amount of presented information. To create an experience that is as close to a real air taxi flight as possible, recent advancements in head-mounted display technology facilitated the creation of a mixed reality simulation. Mixed reality combines advantages of full-flight simulators like human collaboration and use of analog instruments with those of virtual reality simulators that are cost-effective, highly immersive devices for rapid prototyping. This paper reports on the work conducted to define and design such a mixed reality simulation to investigate factors of passenger acceptance. First, functional requirements that were defined for a first study of passenger interaction and comfort are presented, as well as the technical requirements that were derived. Additionally, mixed reality technology should be used for the novel simulator to enable high flexibility. Second, as numerable different setups of mixed reality were possible with state-of-the-art technology, four different setups were compared in a pre-study against each other. The empirical results with regards to experienced immersion are presented. Finally, the conclusion from this study regarding the final setup for the mixed reality simulation are presented

iUSIM - Institutsübergreifende, modulare Urban Mobility Simulationsinfrastruktur

Generische Simulationsmodelle sind essenziell für die Bewertung neuer Konzepte, Verfahren und Methoden im Bereich Luftfahrt und Verkehr und stellen somit einen wesentlichen Bestandteil unserer Forschung dar. Die Institute für Flugführung (FL), Verkehrssystemtechnik (TS) und Softwaretechnologie (SC) verfügen jeweils über fundierte Kenntnisse und Expertisen hinsichtlich verschiedener Simulationstechnologien und -möglichkeiten. Diese wurden im Rahmen des Projektes zusammengetragen und ausgetauscht. Anhand eines Rettungsszenarios steht insbesondere die Verbindung der einzelnen Simulatoren von FL, TS, SC im Fokus dieser Arbeit

Can Urban Air Mobility become reality? Opportunities, challenges and selected research results

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a new air transportation system for passengers and cargo in urban environments, enabled by new technologies and integrated into multimodal transportation systems. The vision of UAM comprises the mass use in urban and suburban environments, complementing existing transportation systems and contributing to the decarbonization of the transport sector. Initial attempts to create a market for urban air transportation in the last century failed due to lack of profitability and community acceptance. Technological advances in numerous fields over the past few decades have led to a renewed interest in urban air transportation. UAM is expected to benefit users and to also have a positive impact on the economy by creating new markets and employment opportunities for manufacturing and operation of UAM vehicles and the construction of related ground infrastructure. However, there are also concerns about noise, safety and security, privacy and environmental impacts. Therefore, the UAM system needs to be designed carefully to become safe, affordable, accessible, environmentally friendly, economically viable and thus sustainable. This paper provides an overview of selected key research topics related to UAM and how the German Aerospace Center (DLR) contributed to this research in the project "HorizonUAM - Urban Air Mobility Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR)". Selected research results that support the realization of the UAM vision are briefly presented.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, project HorizonUA

Konzeption einer Anzeige zur Unterstützung von Verhandlungsprozessen:Methodik und erste Validierungsergebnisse

Neuartige kooperative und systemgestützte Arbeitsprozesse erfordern neue Schnittstellen, nicht nur zwischen Technik und Mensch, sondern auch zwischen Mensch und Mensch. Im Flughafenmanagement werden diese Anforderungen besonders deutlich. Im DLR-Projekt FAMOUS (Future Airport Management Operation Utility System, Werther, Spieß et al. 2008) wird ein neuartiges Konzept des ganzheitlichen Flughafenmanagements („Total Airport Management“, TAM) entwickelt. Es sieht vor, dass Interessensvertreter am Flughafen, wie Fluglinien, Bodenabfertigung, Flugsicherung und Flughafenmanagement, gemeinschaftliche Entscheidungen bezüglich des Betriebsablaufes treffen („Collaborative Decision Making“, CDM), um einen effizienteren Betrieb des Flughafens zu erzielen. Es ist vorgesehen, dass die Entscheidungsfindung über Verhandlungen zwischen Agenten der Interessensvertreter erfolgt, um alle Interessen zu berücksichtigen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird die Entwicklung einer Gemeinschaftsanzeige zur Unterstützung dieser Verhandlungsprozesse vorgestellt. Die Erwartung ist, dass die Darstellung verhandlungsrelevanter Informationen auf einer großen Anzeige das gemeinsame Situationsbewusstsein der Agenten fördern, und damit das Erarbeiten gemeinschaftlicher Lösungen unterstützen soll. In der Konzeptionsphase wurden die funktionalen Anforderungen an die Anzeige mittels kognitiver Aufgabenanalyse erarbeitet. Dabei wurden drei Funktionsbereiche identifiziert, welche die Anzeige unterstützen soll: Information, Kommunikation und Organisation. Mithilfe theoretischer Modelle zum Situationsbewusstsein bzw. Team-Situationsbewusstsein (Endsley 1995; Salas, Prince et al. 1995) wurden die relevanten Informationen identifiziert, welche auf der Anzeige dargestellt werden sollten. In einem ersten statischen Prototyp wurde für diese Informationen eine adäquate Visualisierung realisiert. Die Funktionsbereiche der Organisation und der Kommunikation wurden in einem funktionsfähigen Prototyp umgesetzt und in einer Laborstudie hinsichtlich seines Einflusses auf das Situationsbewusstsein und die Verhandlung untersucht. Die Ergebnisse der Studie liefern erste Hinweise dafür, dass der Einsatz der Anzeige in der Verhandlung das Situationsbewusstsein der Gruppe verbessert und ein effizienteres Verhandeln ermöglicht

Head Up Only – A design concept to enable multiple remote tower operations

Multiple remote tower control aims at enabling one air traffic controller (ATCO) to control simultaneous traffic at two airports at the same time. This concept has the advantage that workforce of the ATCOs can be utilized in an optimized way. Nevertheless, it raises the questions how the workplace should be designed in order to allow the ATCO to handle as much traffic as possible in a safe and efficient manner. One important parameter is the visual attention of the ATCO. Monitoring is the main task of tower ATCOs and is the mechanism by which ATCOs detect deviations between the preplanned and the real traffic situation. As a rule of thumb, air traffic controllers are trained to “look outside” as often as possible, also called working “head-up”. Especially, it is a normative behavior that the controller should monitor an aircraft during the take-off and landing phase in order to detect any hazardous events as early as possible, e.g. a burning engine. In contrast to this rule, the so-called “head-down” times of air traffic controllers increased already over the past years as new information sources were presented to the ATCOs by adding displays to their working positons. So it is of interest; whether ATCOs are able conduct their monitoring task in a multiple remote tower environment where the number of sources with visual information is further increased. Specifically, the ATCOs should be able to monitor take-off and landings as good as compared to working on a single airport

Identification of performance-relevant characteristics of team communication in the Air Traffic Control domain

Die Arbeit von Teams ist ein Einflussfaktor auf die Leistungsfähigkeit des Luftverkehrssystems. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz zur Analyse der Teamkommunikation vorgestellt, um Teamarbeit und den Einfluss neuartiger Flugführungskonzepte in High-Fidelity-Simulationen zu erfassen. Hierzu wurde der Einfluss der situativen Faktoren Kommunikationsmedium und Erfahrung auf das Kommunikationsverhalten betrachtet. Am Beispiel der Aufgaben eines Streckenfluglotsen wurden leistungssteigernde Verhaltensweisen theoretisch-analytisch definiert und in ein Rahmenmodell der Teamkommunikation integriert. Für die empirische Überprüfung wurde die Versuchsumgebung TeamCom als abstrahierte Fluglotsen-Teamaufgabe entwickelt, in der Teammitglieder gemeinsam Flugverkehr überwachen und Separationsverletzung verhindern mussten. Zur Erfassung der kommunikativen Verhaltensweisen wurden Metriken aus Sprachdaten abgleitet. Es wurden mit Laien zwei Studien zum Einfluss von Kommunikationsmedium und Erfahrung mit je 29 Zweier-Teams durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zum einen, dass das Kommunikationsverhalten kaum von der gemeinsamen Erfahrung im Team beeinflusst war, aber maßgeblich von dem benötigten Zeitaufwand für die Nutzung der Kommunikationsmedien abhing. Zum anderen konnten in diesen Studien gute und schlechte Teams anhand zeitbezogener Metriken differenziert werden, welche die Kommunikation von Teams in Verhältnis zu den Anforderungen der Aufgabe setzen. Leistungsstarke Teams tauschten frühzeitiger relevante Daten zur Teamaufgabe aus und kommunizierten ebenfalls früher Situationen mit gemeinsamem Handlungsbedarf. Außerdem kommunizierten diese Teams frühzeitiger ihre Absichten und gaben häufiger Rückmeldungen. Aufbauend auf diesen Ergebnissen wurden Mehrwert, Grenzen und Aussagekraft einer Kommunikationsanalyse diskutiert. Da unerwartete Verhaltensweisen identifiziert wurden, kann die Analyse der Teamkommunikation einen Beitrag zur Verfeinerung theoretischer Modelle von Teamarbeit und Teamleistung in komplexen Mensch-Maschine-Systemen leisten. Um die Anwendbarkeit des Verfahrens zu verbessern, wird ein Ausblick auf die Möglichkeiten zur Automatisierung der Analyse gegeben.Work conducted by teams influences the performance of the air traffic system. This thesis proposes the analysis of team communication to assess teamwork und understand its influence on novel air traffic management concepts in high-fidelity simulations. The influence of the situational factors experience and communication media on communication behaviour was studied. Tasks of en-route air traffic controllers were used as an example to identify performance enhancing behaviours. First, they were defined based on theory and task analysis and integrated into a frame model of team communication. Second, these behaviours were reviewed by using empirical data. Therefore, the simplified air traffic control team task TeamCom was developed where team members had to jointly monitor air traffic and prevent separation losses. To capture communication behaviour, metrics were derived from speech data. Two studies with novice samples of 29 dyads each were conducted which analysed the influence of communication media and experience on team communication. Results show that communication was rarely systematically influenced by experience, but significantly by the time needed for using communication media. Furthermore, in these studies teams with good and poor performance could be discriminated by metrics that related timing of communication to requirements and pace of the team task. Teams with good performance exchanged relevant information for their tasks earlier and communicated situations earlier, which required joint actions from the team. Additionally, high-performance teams communicated their intentions and gave each other more feedback. Based on these findings, added value, limitations, and informative value of communication analysis are discussed. As unexpected performance-related communication behaviours could be identified, team communication analysis can contribute to the refinement of theoretical models of teamwork and team performance in complex human-machine-systems. To enhance practicability of the approach, a perspective for automating the analysis is given

Head Up Only – A design concept to enable multiple remote Tower operations

Multiple remote tower operations are one concept for more cost efficient air traffic control at smaller airports. One air traffic controller should control traffic at two or more airports at the same time. As monitoring and visual observation is an important task of tower controllers, this concept raises questions regarding the human performance in such a work environment. A high fidelity study with 16 air traffic controllers investigated into the influence of multiple remote operations on visual attention and monitoring performance. Empirical results of eye movement measures are presented. Whilst in general visual attention distribution was not affected, less relevant events were monitored, because the visual attention was distributed over the two airports. In order to mitigate these effects, two workplace design approaches are presented – information integration and attention guidance. Advantages and challenges of the two approaches are discussed, with a focus on the impact of the design concepts on the working methods of air traffic controllers

FAMOUS- Ergebnisse der APOC-Versuchsphase I

Es werden die im Rahmen des DLR-internen Projektes FAMOUS erzielten Ergebnisse eines Experten-Workshops zur Konzeptvalidierung und Ermittlung der "Stakeholder needs" (gemäß E-OCVM) berichtet