Single Pilot Operations Along the Human-Centered Design Lifecycle: Reviewing the Dedicated Support Concept

Abstract

Single pilot operations (SPO) for airliners represent the evolutionary cockpit crew development for future aviation. The present work replies to the call for a human-centered research agenda by providing a systematic review of the literature for one of the most-widely researched concepts of SPO: the dedicated-support concept, which is also known as harbor pilot concept. Accordingly, a remote-copilot supports a single-piloted aircraft to alleviate high workload that can occur during nominal, off-nominal, and emergency situations. All studies of a recently published systematic literature review on SPO [1] were coded according to the categories of type of article, concept of operation, and method. The studies on the concept under analysis were systematically reviewed further to evaluate their contribution to its current state in human-centered design according to ISO 9241-210. The theoretical foundations of such SPO are elaborated in detail in modeling studies and accident analyses whereas empirical evaluation of design solutions has been started only in a few studies. Nonetheless, workload seems consistently be able to be distributed in a comparable range as in nowadays flight operations. In the end, the dedicated support concept of SPO is at early stages in the human-centered design process.