Automation: what role for the Human?

SESAR ALIAS conference

Unless controllers (and service providers):

• Speak loudly about the beneficialrole of air traffic control

• Use terminology that is understood by the powerful lobby groups such as airlines

• Make significant changes to more strategic and interoperable control practices

the existing role of air traffic control in air traffic management will be phased out!

Warning

• Future ATM is now (being designed)

• ICAO Global Concept is being interpreted by those outside of ATC – especially “users”

• Organizations that phased out the flight

engineer, introduced fly-by-wire, etc now

have massive government funding to redefine ATM

• Airlines are doing what Service Providers

should have been doing

Why

Future ATM • The whole ATM system will be performance based, and changes based on

performance cases (which includes safety cases).

• A high level of automation will be required in meeting the highest ATM performance requirements.

• Air Traffic control (reactive, tactical) will be replaced by Air Traffic Management (proactive, strategic).

• Management by Trajectory will form the basis of all controllers’ activities.

• Airspace will be dynamic (move around).

• UAV in non-segregated airspace.

• Less controllers needed

• Local/Regional Implementation– Airports will be controlled from a remote facility (virtual towers). – Completely automated separation provision.

ProceduralEstimate the current and planned a/c positions

Past

RadarKnow the current

and estimate planned

a/c positions

Today

TrajectoryKnow & share the

current and planned a/c positions

A320

Future

Current situation

Procedural

Estimate the current and planned a/c positions

Past -Prisoner of an old system -Which is working in isolation

-FPL and FMS information only known to my unit (if at all)

-Too much housekeeping tasks -Radio communication -Strip updates -HMI updates -Phone coordination with adjacent sectors

RadarKnow the current

and estimate planned

a/c positions

Today

TrajectoryKnow & share the

current and planned a/c positions

A320

Future

Current situation

-I have to make up for the Antiquated system – by inventing work around and deviation from the rules to make it work -Airspace is not really available on a need basis -Airport have limited capacity -Financial issues are more important than generating capacity

Human & Technology

Influencing factorsNew Technology

Evolving role of humans

Service Provision Job evolution

AutomationHuman centered

Strong point of humans

Risks • Current system is understaffed

– (+15% for transition phase)

• Involvement of human operators is crucial – Challenge for validation (ANSP)– High risk for SESAR

• Final result of SESAR is not what is required in OPS room, due to a strong industrial influence

QUESTIONS: •Who is responsible for the decisions of automation •Who is responsible in case of failure (redundancy), taking into account that impact of failure is/might be more damaging •COTS (commercial off the shelf) and certification? •ATCOs will decide on scenarios proposed by WHAT IF tools

what happens if ATCO will override the machine or machine overrides ATCO •Delegation of separation

Can the system be held liable? What if an aircraft looses it's precision functions What if something is not working according to scenario brake and vacate does not work, longer runway occupancy

•Which state will be responsible in case of an accidentA German ATCO controlling the flow of traffic (scenario based) from Scandinavia to Spain (accident happens over France)

•Who controls the system (fully automated/remote tower) of system •Who looks out of the tower?

There is a lot of prospective work from a legal point of view needed already now in the development phase of SESAR and NEXTGEN

Safety will become an inherent property of the system Delegation of separation Automation of separation No more sovereign airspace in the ATM management Failure will have a bigger destruction power (network effect)Design will have to cater for the end result ARE WE (as Aviation community) ready for it?

www.ifatca.org Sesar.coord@ifatca.org