Effects of Automation Types on Air Traffic Controller Situation Awareness and PerformanceThe Joint Planning and Development Office has proposed the introduction of automated systems to help air traffic controllers handle the increasing volume of air traffic in the next two decades (JPDO, 2007). Because fully automated systems leave operators out of the decision-making loop (e.g., Billings, 1991), it is important to determine the right level and type of automation that will keep air traffic controllers in the loop. This study examined the differences in the situation awareness (SA) and collision detection performance of individuals when they worked with information acquisition, information analysis, decision and action selection and action implementation automation to control air traffic (Parasuraman, Sheridan, & Wickens, 2000). When the automation was unreliable, the time taken to detect an upcoming collision was significantly longer for all the automation types compared with the information acquisition automation. This poor performance following automation failure was mediated by SA, with lower SA yielding poor performance. Thus, the costs associated with automation failure are greater when automation is applied to higher order stages of information processing. Results have practical implications for automation design and development of SA training programs.
Document ID
20090040350
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Sethumadhavan, A.
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2009
Subject Category
Air Transportation And Safety
Meeting Information
Meeting: 53rd Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society