Controller response behaviour during procedural control with surveillance information

Abstract

Air Traffic Controller (ATCo) duties are challenging due to their heavy task demand. ATCo needs to monitor air traffic while ensuring a smooth flow of traffic and also maintaining safe separation between aircraft. In this study, a human-in-the-loop experiment was carried out to assess the controller response behaviour during procedural control with radar information assistance. Lumpur Sector 4 in Kuala Lumpur Flight Information Region (KL FIR) has been chosen as the assigned sector to study ATCo reactions during control activities. The sector was characterised with two intercepting inbound flight routes and two sets of traffic feed: high traffic feed with incoming feed rate of one aircraft for every 60s and low traffic feed with incoming feed rate of one aircraft for every 70s. The experiment was conducted with two controllers (expert subjects) from the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) and two students (trained subjects) using a customized air traffic radar and either a Procedural Control Bay or an Electronic Flight Strip Bay. To monitor controller reactions, a heart rate sensor monitoring device was chosen as a primary monitoring tool. Additionally, the controller subjective workload was measured using the Instantaneous Self-Assessment (ISA) workload rating and NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) questionnaires. Based on the results, the ISA workload rating can be observed to be fluctuating throughout the experiment sessions. The fluctuation was also captured to be in agreement with the response gathered from heart rate sensor monitoring device. Overall, the subjects were observed to exhibit a lower stress level for the low traffic condition than for the high traffic condition. In the future, it is recommended that more subjects should be included in the research in order to be better conclude on whether workload can indeed be assessed by monitoring subject's heart rate or response.