Aviation News Item: 00217

16th Oct 2009

Source: ubmaviationnews.com

Too much automation in air traffic control (ATC) systems could lead to fatal mistakes by the controllers when that automation fails, argues Arathi Sethumadhavan in a recent doctorate completed at the Texas Tech University's department of psychology. "Fully automated systems are not always desirable because they tend to leave the controller out of the decision-making loop," Sethumadhavan said. "The controllers tend to become overly reliant on the automation, so that when it fails, it's hard for the operator to take back control. The key is to find the right level and type of automation that benefits the controller and still keeps the controller in the decision-making loop." The academic trained 72 subjects to use a simple ATC simulator with four levels of automation. She found that controllers with more automation built into their systems were less able to detect collisions in their airspace when the systems failed than those who had less automation. While this analysis certainly falls in line with recent concern about decreasing basic flying skills among flight crew of highly automated aircraft, the question is how accurately can an examination with, presumably, untrained test subjects reflect the actual ATC environment with fully qualified and experienced air traffic controllers?

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