Integration of air traffic control user interfaces

Abstract

Communication and surveillance capabilities in oceanic air traffic control are improving and the amount of air traffic increases significantly over the next decades. This requires new systems and procedures to be incorporated into the oceanic air traffic controller workstation. The Icelandic Civil Aviation Administration (ICAA) is looking at ways to integrate the current set of user interfaces used at Reykjavik Oceanic Center in an effort to increase controller performance. The workstation consists of three different user interfaces, the flight data processing systems (FDPS), which presents electronic flight strips to the controller, the radar display, which displays radar data and the situation display, which is a backup system for the FDPS system. Three approaches for integration are presented and claims analysis used to select between them. The result of the claims analysis and controllers' preference was a spatial display where the FDPS system is integrated into the radar display. A paper prototype was created and presented to qualified air traffic controllers in order to get feedback on the prototype design as well as the transition from a temporal display to spatial display. This paper discusses the prototype design and the results from two user-testing sessions at ICAA.