Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-1A The Free Flight Deck Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) S-7, “Flight Deck and Handling Qualities Standards for Transport Aircraft” Amsterdam, 1 May 2000 Rob Ruigrok, Jacco Hoekstra, Ronald van Gent

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-2A Presentation Overview l Introduction to Free Flight l Design of the Free Flight Deck –Starting points –Airborne Separation Assurance System l Using the Free Flight Deck: –NLR studies on Free Flight with Airborne Separation Assurance l Conclusions and Recommendations l Future Plans l Demonstrations

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-3A Introduction to Free Flight RTCA definition: zones l Protected zone: –spatial, according operational separation standards –expected to remain free of other aircraft l Alert zone: –spatial or time based zone around the protected zone –conflict alerts are issued to the pilot

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-4A Introduction to Free Flight Eurocontrol’s definition

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-5A Design of the Free Flight Deck Starting points l Operational Concept (probe the limits) –No Air Traffic Control –Air crew responsible for traffic separation –Focus on Free Flight Airspace –Central Traffic Flow Management active –Managed Airspace near airports (TMA) l Cruise flight only –Direct routing –Optimal cruise altitude l Limited scope –No Special Use Airspace (SUA) –No weather

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-6A Design of the Free Flight Deck What do we need ? l Aircrew has to: –“see” other traffic –determine conflicts with other aircraft –resolve conflicts with other aircraft –avoid new conflicts with other aircraft –be alerted Airborne Separation Assurance System (ASAS) l Investigate minimum standard: –flight deck design based on, and close to current implementation (EFIS, FMS, TCAS)

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-7A Design of the Free Flight Deck ASAS equipment l “See” other traffic –Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B), Traffic Information Service - Broadcast (TIS-B) –Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) l Determine and resolve conflicts with other aircraft –Conflict Detection and Resolution (CD&R) l Avoid new conflicts with other aircraft –Predictive ASAS (PASAS) l Be alerted –Alerting logic

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-8A Design of the Free Flight Deck Conflict definition A conflict is defined as a potential intrusion of the protected zone in the near future

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-9A Design of the Free Flight Deck Conflict Detection & Resolution ownship intruder minimum distance protected zone intruder avoidance vector advised vector 1. heading change 2. speed change not shown: 3. vertical speed change

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-10A Design of the Free Flight Deck Cockpit Display of Traffic Information l Navigation Display –Traffic Symbology –Conflict Detection –Resolution Advisories –Vertical Navigation Display –Extra EFIS Control Panel functionality

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-11A Design of the Free Flight Deck Predictive ASAS l “no-go” bands for – track/heading – vertical speed – speed

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-12A Using the Free Flight Deck NLR studies on Free Flight l Studies on Airborne Separation Assurance, the flight deck perspective: –Conceptual design and off-line validation –Safety analysis –1997 human-in-the-loop experiment –Cost/benefit analysis –Avionics requirements study –Critical conflict geometry study –1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l In co-operation with NASA, FAA and RLD

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-13A Using the Free Flight Deck 1997 human-in-the-loop experiment l Traffic Densities: –Single –Double –Triple l Level of Automation: –Manual –Execute Combined –Execute Separate l Non-Nominal: –Other aircraft failures/events –Own aircraft failures/events –Delay time increased

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-14A Using the Free Flight Deck 1997 human-in-the-loop experiment l Acceptability: –91.5% (single), 83.0% (double), 78.7% (triple) l Safety: –88.3% (single), 75.5% (double), 71.3% (triple) l Workload: –ratings less than 40, indicating “costing some effort” l Across all densities, across all sessions, across all subject pilots, including non-nominal events

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-15A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l Goals –study the transition to Free Flight Airspace (in space) –study the transition towards Free Flight in time l Starting points: –equipping aircraft should be immediately beneficial to the airlines –equipping should be economy driven in stead of mandatory –benefit the equipped aircraft, without excluding the unequipped aircraft

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-16A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l Three ATM operational scenarios with Free Flight elements defined, implemented and tested: –Flight Level –Protected Airways –Full Mix l Experiment matrix –Traffic Density - low density versus high density –Equipage - 25% versus 75% ASAS equipped –ATM operational concept - Flight Level, Protected Airways and Full Mix

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-17A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l > 85% of responses indicate FF acceptable or better

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-18A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l > 85% of responses indicate FF as safe or safer than ATC

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-19A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l Workload measurement: –Subjective by means of questionnaires with Rating Scale of mental Effort (RSME) –Objective by means of Eye-Point-Of-Gaze measurements l Scan randomness (entropy) used as objective metric for workload

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-20A Using the Free Flight Deck 1998 human-in-the-loop experiment l Workload: sensitive to ATM operational scenario

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-21A Conclusions and Recommendations l The feasibility of Free Flight with Airborne Separation Assurance could not be refuted, based on 7 NLR studies on Free Flight l The future ATM design has to be chosen very carefully, since the design itself affects pilot and controller workload considerably l The flightdeck crew was able to handle much higher traffic densities than the ground controller (distributed versus centrally organised nature) Free Flight might be a solution for current airspace capacity problems

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-22A Future Plans l Human Interaction Experiment, using Internet gaming facilities (scheduled June 2000) (we need many volunteering pilots for this, to register please contact or l Flight testing of ASAS equipment, using “real” data –using NLR and possibly NASA laboratory aircraft l Simulation experiments to study: –the effect of real ADS-B characteristics –the use of Free Flight equipment in Managed Airspace –the integration of traffic, weather and terrain information in the cockpit

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-23A Demonstrations l Research Flight Simulator: Free Flight demo l NLR’s ATC Research Simulator NARSIM l NLR’s Research Flight Simulator - Next Generation

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium National Aerospace Laboratory NLR DXXX-24A Contact / More information l NLR Free Flight web site: l /phone: Rob Ruigrok: Jacco Hoekstra: Ronald van Gent: l Mail: Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium Anthony Fokkerweg CM Amsterdam The Netherlands