Extending Validated Human Performance Models to Evaluate NextGen Concepts

To meet the expected increases in air traffic demands, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are researching and developing Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) concepts. NextGen will require substantial increases to the data available to pilots on the flight deck (e.g., wake projections) to support more precise and closely coordinated operations (e.g., closely spaced parallel operations, CSPOs). These NextGen operations, along with the pilots’ roles and responsibilities, must be designed with consideration of the pilots’ capabilities. Failure to do so will leave the pilots, and thus the entire aviation system, vulnerable to error. A validated Manmachine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) v5 model was extended to evaluate changes to flight deck and controller roles and responsibilities in NextGen approach and land operations. Compared to conditions when the controllers are responsible for separation on descent to land phase of flight, the output from these model predictions suggest that the flight deck response time to detect the lead aircraft blunder will decrease, pilot scans to the navigation display will increase, and workload will increase. Keywords: NextGen CSPO, MIDAS v5, Human Performance Model Approved for Release -­‐ Preprint to be included in Proceedings of the Applied Human Factor and Ergonomics 2012, 07/10/12-­‐07/14/12