Idag är många branscher beroende av ett gediget teamwork. Det finns dock ett behov av objektiva mätsystem för teamwork och därför har detta projekt som syfte att skapa och testa ett observationsprotokoll utifrån den teoretiska modellen ’The Big Five of Teamwork’ framtagen av Salas, Sims & Burke (2005). Observationsprotokollet användes för att observera teamwork mellan två flygledare på Arlanda ATCC. Därefter fick flygledarna svara på en enkät för att bidra med subjektiva aspekter från modellen. Totalt genomfördes 15 stycken strukturerade observationer. Resultatet visade att det är möjligt att skatta teamwork på flygledare med hjälp av ett observationsprotokoll baserat på sex av åtta komponenter, där inte teamorientering och gemensam mental modell ingick. Komponenterna visade sig vara mer än bara ett observerbart beteende och enbart observationer frambringar inte en rättvis bild över komponenten. Resultatet visade också på att flygledarna själva upplever samtliga komponenter som en del av arbetet. Observationerna visade att samarbetet kunde se olika ut och skilja sig från team till team, och att flygledarna anpassar sig efter varandras behov. / Today, many industries are dependent on a solid teamwork. However, there is a need for objective measurement assessment for teamwork and therefore this project aims to create and test an observation protocol based on the theoretical model ’The Big Five of Teamwork’ compiled by Salas, Sims & Burke (2005). The observation protocol was used to observe teamwork between two air traffic controllers at Arlanda ATCC. After the observations the air traffic controllers answered a survey to receive subjective aspects from the model. A total of 15 structured observations were conducted. The results revealed that it’s possible to estimate teamwork on air traffic controllers using an observation protocol based on six of eight components, where team orientation and shared mental model were not included. The components appeared to be more than just an observable behavior, thus only observations does not give a fair picture of the component. The result also showed that air traffic controllers themselves perceive all components as a part of the work. The observations showed that the cooperation could look different and differ from team to team, and that air traffic controllers adapt to each other’s needs.

The aim of this study was to investigate how air traffic controllers cope with stress and also to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups. The study was conducted on a sample of Air Traffic Controllers who control civilian aircraft in the South African airspace. The coping resources inventory (CRI) assessment was used to collect data and analysed to determine how controllers cope with stress and whether there are differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups. The results showed that air traffic controllers use emotional coping resources to cope with stressful work situations and make less use of cognitive coping resources. The results also showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups. / Industrial and organisational psychology / M.A. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Dans cette thèse, nous menons une réflexion sur les notions de norme(s) et d’usage(s) langagiers dans le cadre du domaine du contrôle aérien. Ce domaine offre l’exemple parfait de la mise en œuvre d’une norme langagière : la "phraséologie" aéronautique, le langage opératif censé permettre des communications sûres et efficaces entre pilotes et contrôleurs, lors des situations les plus courantes. Lorsque la phraséologie ne suffit pas, ces derniers ont recours à une forme langagière plus naturelle, le "plain language". De nombreux problèmes relatifs à la mise en œuvre de ce dernier ont rapidement vu le jour et ont suscité des interrogations, notamment chez les professionnels de l’enseignement de l’anglais de l’aviation. Pour répondre aux besoins spécifiques de l’ENAC, cette thèse dresse un panorama des usages faits de la langue anglaise par les contrôleurs français et les pilotes étrangers lors de leurs communications radiotéléphoniques. Notre méthode d’analyse consiste en une étude comparative entre un corpus de référence, représentant la norme, et un corpus de communications réelles, représentant les usages. Cette analyse comparative nous permet de repérer, de décrire et de catégoriser les formes langagières employées lors de situations routinières de la navigation aérienne. Certaines différences sont ainsi repérées entre les deux corpus. En fonction de la situation, les pilotes et les contrôleurs peuvent procéder à des variations d’ordre lexical, sémantique, syntaxique et discursif. Alors que certains semblent subir l’influence de la langue naturelle, d’autres semblent mettre en œuvre une stratégie communicationnelle pour tenter d’"humaniser" ou de modaliser le contenu de leurs messages. / This thesis is a reflection upon the notions of linguistic norm(s) and usage(s) within the domain of Air Traffic Control. This domain provides a prime example of an established linguistic norm: that of “phraseology”, the controlled language used between pilots and controllers to optimise and secure their most frequent communications. If pilots and controllers do not speak the same language, the phraseology used is then based on English. Whenever the limits of phraseology are reached, pilots and controllers revert to a more natural form of language which has only recently been described in this domain: plain language. However, several problems relating to the implementation of plain language and phraseology have been identified by professional Aviation English teachers. To meet the needs of the French civil aviation university (ENAC), a survey of the different uses of the English language by French controllers and international pilots is presented. The method of analysis consists in a comparative study between two corpora: one representing the prescribed norm and the other corresponding to real pilot-controller communications. This comparative analysis allows the description and categorization of the different types of languages used on the frequency in air navigation typical situations. Some differences are found between the two corpora. Depending on the situation, pilots and controllers’ messages can indeed vary from a lexical, semantic or syntactic and discursive point of view. Some variations reflect the influence of natural language on the speakers while others can be considered as a strategy to “humanise” radiotelephony communications.

Le contrôle aérien doit faire face à une forte intensification du trafic aérien. Dans cette situation, la problématique de la charge mentale chez les contrôleurs aériens est une préoccupation majeure pour maintenir le niveau de sécurité actuel. Le système d’aide automatisé ERASMUS a été élaboré afin de réduire la charge mentale chez les contrôleurs aériens. L’objectif d’ERASMUS est de compenser les effets liés à l’intensification du trafic en réduisant de manière subliminale la charge mentale associée à l’augmentation des conflits potentiels. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer pour la première fois une mesure objective de l’impact du système d’aide ERASMUS sur la charge mentale des contrôleurs aériens. La réalisation de cet objectif a nécessité le développement d’une plateforme originale d’enregistrement et de traitement des mouvements oculaires non intrusive dans un environnement de simulation hautement fidèle. Les mouvements oculaires d’un groupe de contrôleurs aériens experts ont été enregistrés. En accord avec l’hypothèse d’ERASMUS, les résultats ont montré des effets de tailles moyennes à grandes sur l’amplitude des saccades, le temps moyen passé sur les aéronefs et sur la distribution de l’attention allouée à la scène visuelle. De plus, sans ERASMUS, l’augmentation de la densité du trafic a augmenté de manière significative les diamètres pupillaires. A l’opposé, quand ERASMUS est actif, l’intensification du trafic n’a pas impacté significativement les diamètres pupillaires. Nous discutons l’impact d’ERASMUS sur la charge mentale ainsi que l’utilisation des mesures oculométriques dans un environnement de simulation écologique de contrôle aérien. / Air Traffic Control has to handle the strong and constant increase in air traffic density. In this context, mental workload experienced by air traffic controllers is a key research concept to maintain the actual safety level. ERASMUS is an automated aid system designed to reduce air traffic controllers’ workload. The purpose of ERASMUS is to compensate the effects of the air traffic growth by reducing the increased mental workload associated with a greater number of potential conflicts. Prior experiments designed to validate the ERASMUS system showed a reduction in ratings of mental workload, but only subjectives measures were used. In the present thesis, the first goal is to complete these first results by providing, for the first time, a real time objective measure of controllers’ mental workload. In this purpose, we had to develop a new non-intrusive eye-tracking platform in a fully realistic simulation environment. The eye movements of seven controllers, placed in a high-fidelity simulation, were recorded. Traffic sequences were manipulated (with vs. without ERASMUS). Consistent with a reduced workload hypothesis, results showed medium to large effects of ERASMUS on the amplitude of saccades, on the time spent gazing aircraft, and on the distribution of attention over the visual scene. Moreover, without ERASMUS, growth in the traffic density significantly increased pupil diameters. In contrast, when ERASMUS was activated, traffic density growth did not impact significantly pupil diameters. Finally, we discuss the impact of ERASMUS on mental workload and the use of pupillometric measures in an ecological air traffic control environment.

In my Master´s thesis I am concerned with the questions of the human factor in air traffic control. The work is mainly focused on the air traffic controller and discusses the influences that directly or indirectly affect the air traffic controller. Considerable attention is paid to the errors that may occur during the management, their analysis and proposals for their elimination, respectively their complete disposal. The main idea is to understand the thinking of the air traffic controller as the human element in an organization and applying theories to reduce the errors in the air traffic control.

In this essay one has been investigating some of the reasons why aviation incidents take place and also examine what strategies there are to minimize the risks - primarily regarding miscommunication which often seems to be a contributing element or a direct cause in aviation mishaps. The aim of this study is to highlight and raise awareness about this field of study from a communicative point of view.The study has been performed using qualitative interviews with pilots, Air Traffic Controllers and other professionals within the aviation industry. The research has been somewhat hampered by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic but not to an extent that would have corrupted the findings.The key results have indicated that miscommunication still is a problem in the aviation industry, but less so on the local national stage than in a global perspective. Two particular occurrences that have been given extra attention are runway incursions and the use of Controller Pilot Data-Link Communications.One has established that there are technical systems available on the market to improve communication performance and that runway incursion is a problem that grows with the complexity of the airport environment. One has also been made aware of the fact that human factors can only be mitigated so far with technology. The principal question has been: How can Miscommunication in Aviation be reduced? / I denna uppsats har vi tittat på några av de bakomliggande orsakerna till att incidenter fortfarande sker inom trafikflyget samt undersökt vilka strategier som föreligger för att minimera dessa risker - primärt pga felkommunikation vilken ofta tenderar att vara en bakomliggande eller direkt utlösande faktor i flygolyckor. Syftet med denna studie är att uppmärksamma och öka medvetenheten om dessa fenomen från en kommunikativ synvinkel.Studien har genomförts medelst en kvalitativ intervjumetod med piloter, flygledare och andra initierade yrkesgrupper inom flygindustrin. Forskningen har hämmats något pga utbrottet av COVID-19 pandemin men inte i en sådan omfattning att resultatet har förvanskats.De huvudsakliga resultaten har indikerat att felkommunikation fortfarande är ett problem inom flygbranschen, men i en långt mindre omfattning på lokal nationell nivå än i ett globalt perspektiv. Två specifika företeelser som har getts extra uppmärksamhet är rullbaneintrång samt användandet av CPDLC (datalänk).Vi har konstaterat att det finns tekniska system på marknaden för att förbättra prestandan på kommunikationen samt att rullbaneintrång är ett problem som växer med flygplatsens storlek och komplexitetsgrad. Vi har också uppmärksammats på att den mänskliga faktorn endast delvis kan undanröjas med hjälp av teknologi. Den huvudsakliga fågeställningen har varit: Hur kan felkommunikation inom flyget reduceras

In my Master´s thesis I am concerned with the questions of the human factor in air traffic control. The work is mainly focused on the air traffic controller and discusses the influences that directly or indirectly affect the air traffic controller. Considerable attention is paid to the errors that may occur during the management, their analysis and proposals for their elimination, respectively their complete disposal. The main idea is to understand the thinking of the air traffic controller as the human element in an organization and applying theories to reduce the errors in the air traffic control.

Die Flugsicherung in Europa befindet sich im Wandel, denn der Europäische Luftraum und die damit verbundenen Prozesse werden seit einigen Jahren harmonisiert. Eine Vielzahl der Forschungsprojekte, die diese Entwicklung begleiten, zielt darauf ab, eine orts- und außensichtunabhängige Arbeitsumgebung für Fluglotsen zu entwickeln. Insbesondere für kleinere Regionalflughäfen besteht die Idee, eine Fernüberwachung in einem Control Center zu bündeln, da die Fluglotsen bis auf die üblichen Peak-Zeiten häufig nicht ausgelastet und teilweise unterfordert sind. Dies ermöglicht nicht nur die Fernüberwachung eines Flughafens, sondern auch die gleichzeitige Überwachung und Kontrolle aller Flugbewegungen von mehreren Flughäfen. Neben den bisherigen Aufgaben eines Fluglotsen, wie das Überwachen des Verantwortungsbereichs und die Gewährleistung einer sicheren und zügigen Abwicklung des Flugplatzverkehrs, ist bei einer Mehrfachkontrolle (Multi-Airport-Control) die Planung des Verkehrsflusses auf den zu kontrollierenden Flughäfen von entscheidender Bedeutung. Neben Systemen zum Außensichtersatz ist hierbei daher auch ein System erforderlich, dass dem Fluglotsen bei der Planung der Flugbewegungen aller Flughäfen unterstützt. Unter Berücksichtigung eines nutzerzentrierten Ansatzes, Richtlinien für einfach bedienbare Benutzerschnittstellen und mit der Intention, auch im Arbeitskontext eine hohe User Experience (UX) zu bieten, wurde das Assistenzsystem MasterMAN entwickelt. Das Konstrukt der User Experience verfolgt einen ganzheitlichen Ansatz und beinhaltet nicht nur sachbezogene Aspekte wie die Usability des Systems sondern auch hedonische Aspekte wie Nutzeremotionen. Folglich wurde eine interaktive grafische Benutzeroberfläche gestaltet, die sowohl einen leichten und sicheren Umgang mit dem System als auch ein anspruchsvolles, positiv empfundenes Look and Feel gewährleistet. Bei der Evaluierung des Systems wurden neben der analytischen Inspektionsmethode Heuristische Evaluation nach Nielsen (1994) auch die ästhetischen Aspekte der grafischen Benutzerschnittstelle mit dem Fragebogen VisAWI (Visual Aesthetics of Websites Inventory) nach Thielsch & Moshagen (2014) adressiert. Acht Usability-Experten bewerteten das Assistenzsystem, notierten alle Auffälligkeiten und Usability-Probleme und führten ein dazugehöriges Severity Rating durch. Unter Zuhilfenahme dieser Vorgehensweise wurden insgesamt 56 Probleme identifiziert, die im weiteren Verlauf der Entwicklung korrigiert wurden. In einer abschließenden Gruppendiskussion mit allen Evaluatoren und den Entwicklern wurden nach dem Vorbild des Pluralistic Walkthrough die Probleme besprochen und Lösungsansätze mit den Usability-Experten erarbeitet. Hinsichtlich der ästhetischen Gestaltung der Benutzerschnittstelle ergab die VisAWIBewertung ein überdurchschnittliches Ergebnis und bestätigte damit ein ansprechendes Design. Weitere Untersuchungen zur Zufriedenheit von Fluglotsen beim Umgang mit dem System sind geplant.

Develop new strategies to design and operate the multilateration systems, used for air traffic control operations, in a more efficient way. The design strategies are based on the utilization of metaheuristic optimization techniques and they are intended to found the optimal spatial distribution of the system ground stations, taking into account the most relevant system operation parameters. The strategies to operate the systems are based on the development of new positioning methods which allow solving the problems of uncertainty position and poor accuracy that the current systems can present. The new strategies can be applied to design, deploy and operate the multilateration systems for airport surface surveillance as well as takeoff-landing, approach and enroute control. An important advance in the current knowledge of air traffic control is expected from the development of these strategies, because they solve several deficiencies that have been made clear, by the international scientific community, in the last years. / Mantilla Gaviria, IA. (2013). New Strategies to Improve Multilateration Systems in the Air Traffic Control [Tesis doctoral]. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/29688 / Alfresco

This research is concerned with the modeling and development of algorithmic approaches for solving airport operational problems that arise in Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems within the terminal area at hub airports. Specifically, the problems addressed include the Aircraft Sequencing Problem (ASP) for runway operations, the Network Assignment Problem (NAP) for taxiway operations, and a simulation model for the evaluation of current or proposed ATC system in detail. For the ASP, we develop a mathematical model and apply the Reformulation-Linearization-Technique (RLT) of Sherali and Adams to construct an enhanced tightened version of the proposed model. Since ASP is NP-Hard and in fact, it is a variation of the well-known Traveling Salesman Problem with time-windows, sub-optimal solutions are usually derived to accommodate the real-time constraints of ATC systems. Nevertheless, we exhibit a significant advancement in this challenging class of problem. Also for the purpose of solving relatively large sized problems in practice, we develop and test suitable heuristic procedures. For the NAP, we propose a quasi-dynamic assignment scheme which is based on the incremental assignment technique. This quasi-dynamic assignment method assumes that the current aircraft route is influenced only by the previous aircraft assigned to the network. This simplified assumption obviates the need for iterative rerouting procedures to reach a pure equilibrium state which might not be achievable in practical taxiway operations. To evaluate the overall system, we develop a microscopic simulation model. The simulation model is designed to have the capability for reproducing not only the dynamic behavior of aircraft, but also incorporates communication activities between controllers and pilots. These activities are critical in ATC operations, and in some instances, might limit the capacity of the facility. Finally, using the developed simulation model named Virginia Tech Airport Simulation Model (VTASM) in concert with ASP and NAP, we compare the overall efficiencies of several control strategies, including that of the existing control system as well as of the proposed advanced control system. / Ph. D.