21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-6.2.2

COCKPIT SYSTEMS REQUIREMENTS IN A FUTURE ATM ENVIRONMENT

de Muynck R. J., Hoekstra J. M., Ruigrok R. C. J., van Gimst R. F.W. G.
National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR, The Netherlands

Keywords: cockpit systems requirements, future atm environment

This paper describes an evaluation study on a number of cockpit concepts, performed at the NLR. The study was aimed at finding minimum cockpit systems requirements necessary to operate a regional aircraft efficiently and safely in a future ATM environment. Initially, a pilot experiment was performed to evaluate a number of proposed flight control and display concepts with respect to workload and situational awareness, compared to current implementations. Since future aircraft will have to operate in a busy environment with tight navigation and time constraints, this may require an improved cockpit design to compensate for the additional pilot workload. Based on the experience gained from the pilot experiment, a combined ATC-aircraft simulation evaluation was conducted utilising NLR's moving base Research Flight Simulator and ATC Research Simulator. Apart from an evaluation of the most promising cockpit concepts in a realistic environment, the study also addressed the application of two proposed 4D Air Traffic Management concepts. The latter required the use of additional FMS functionality and ATC-aircraft datalink, as well as an adapted version of the Center Tracon Automation System, used for ATC planning and control. Results of the evaluation study included subjective comments of the participating pilots.

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