Investigative study using eye fixation to evaluate air traffic complexity at angle of crossing

• Main Author: Chia, Jia Jun
• Other Authors: Lye Sun Woh
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/74954
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With the air traffic demand expected to grow exponentially, a more convoluted air route structure with tighter separation standards is expected to be established. This would not only have a great impact on the present tactical radar monitoring operation but also have a significant influence on the performance of air traffic controllers. Past incident reports have identified the lack of experience of Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) and the disparity in angle of crossing as the main reason for loss of separation between aircraft. Past research studies have discovered that there is indeed discrepancy in visual monitoring behaviour between controllers with different expertise level via the use of eye tracking technology. However, these past researches tend not to have a wide coverage on the possible air traffic situations with limited effort in trying to map the movement of the eye ball to the radar date in real-time. This project aims to provide an approach where the monitoring performance of ATCOs with contrasting level of expertise can be specifically evaluated using the characteristics of angle of crossing. Fixation count and fixation duration on the aircraft of interest was used as the monitoring performance metric for this study. It was found that there were clear differences between ATCOs with different level of expertise, particularly in the monitoring. A performance score card was then derived to identify this difference in expertise level. This would provide the foundation for future development in predictive aids to help ATCOs in maintaining the safety on every piece of airspace.