Designing radar display graphics to mitigate controlled flight into terrain

Abstract

This paper’s contributions are design principles and graphical components for air traffic control officer radar displays. The graphics inform of flights passing into uncontrolled airspace and controlled flight into terrain. This is a major cause for fatal accidents caused by loss of situational awareness by the flight crew. The objective is to contact the flight crew early enough to mitigate the situation. The theoretical framework stems from research into situational awareness and rapid visual perception graphics. The resulting graphics are evaluated through a small-scale simulator user study using certified air traffic control officers. It suggests that the proposed graphics are suitable to mitigate unintentional entry into uncontrolled airspace and controlled flight into terrain, but are inconclusive for warning times. The results suggest that the usability is acceptable. Further research should collect performance data from a larger user group, and generalize such graphics to other time-constrained situations.