Interval Management Visualization for Flight Crew Workload Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Complex interval management clearance messages pose challenges for flight crews in processing and deciding on acceptance or rejection, leading to increased time and difficulty in managing aircraft spacing during air traffic control operations.
Innovation Solution
A system that simulates the interval management procedure through animation, parsing IM clearance messages to extract relevant information, and displaying a graphical preview on both plan and vertical views, allowing flight crews to visualize the proposed procedure before acceptance or rejection, including options for wind profile data, zooming, and color coding for better understanding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If flight crews manually process complex IM clearance messages, then they can ensure accurate understanding of spacing goals, but the time required to process and decide on acceptance or rejection increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary visualization of the IM procedure by generating an animated simulation that shows the projected flight paths, spacing intervals, and maneuver sequences before the flight crew makes their acceptance or rejection decision. This preliminary action allows the crew to understand the complex procedure in advance, reducing the time needed for manual processing while maintaining accurate comprehension.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a visual copy or simulation of the actual IM procedure that will be executed. By displaying an animated representation of the flight paths, spacing goals, and maneuvers on a display device, the flight crew can review the procedure without needing to manually interpret complex clearance messages, thereby reducing processing time while preserving understanding accuracy.
2Reliability
If flight crews carefully evaluate each IM clearance message before acceptance, then they can ensure correct processing of the procedure, but the complexity of the messages makes this evaluation more difficult and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The system transforms the complex, abstract IM clearance message into a visual, animated representation that adds a spatial and temporal dimension to the procedure. By displaying flight paths, spacing intervals, and maneuvers as graphical elements that evolve over time, the system makes the complex procedure easier to evaluate while maintaining processing correctness.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses color coding in the animated simulation to highlight different aspects of the IM procedure, such as spacing intervals, flight phases, or critical maneuver points. This visual differentiation helps flight crews quickly identify and evaluate key elements of the procedure, reducing the difficulty of assessment while ensuring correct processing.
3Loss of information
If detailed information is provided in IM clearance messages to ensure complete understanding, then the procedure can be executed accurately, but the amount of information increases the difficulty of processing for the flight crew
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the detailed IM procedure information into distinct visual components in the animated simulation, such as separate flight paths for ownship and target aircraft, individual maneuver segments, and spaced-out timing indicators. This segmentation allows the flight crew to process information in manageable chunks while retaining complete procedural understanding.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transforms detailed textual information into a visual timeline and spatial representation, where information is distributed across the time dimension (animated sequence) and space dimension (flight path geometry). This dimensional transformation presents complete information in a more accessible format, improving ease of processing without losing information completeness.
Data Source
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AI summary
Methods and apparatus are provided for simulating an interval management (IM) procedure for an ownship aircraft and a target aircraft before the start of the performance of the IM procedure. The method comprises receiving an IM clearance message from air traffic control (ATC), parsing the received IM clearance message into parsed information components identifying the complexity of the IM clearance message based on the number of elements in the information components, generating a flight chart depicting the area over which the proposed IM procedure is to traverse using the mapping information wherein the flight chart includes a vertical view and a plan view, and simulating the IM procedure on the generated flight chart before any steps of the IM procedure are performed.