Deborah A. Boehm-Davis
AVIATION RESEARCH
Our work in aviation has comprised work on commercial aviation as well as general aviation. Some of this work has been supported by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) while some of it has been funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
IMPROVING AVIATION SAFETY THROUGH TRAINING AND DESIGN
(2009 – current)
This research program is designed to improve aviation safety through training and design. The goal of this research program is to improve pilot preparedness in the cockpit. The work builds on our prior work assessing current problems with automated systems on the flight deck and developing potential solutions to problems generated by these new systems and our work evaluating the human factors issues associated with the implementation of DataComm as an enabling technology for NextGen. It also builds on a recent industry survey. Taking past research into account, along with stated needs for further research, this research program begins with a focus on several individual projects. These include: developing and evaluating methods for delivery of training for visual approaches; developing and evaluating distance education along with metrics for evaluating what was learned; and identifying and evaluating flight deck automation issues. Solving these problems will have a significant impact of the performance and safety of pilots in the cockpit, leading to a safer aviation environment.
Project Funded by: Federal Aviation Administration, AAR-100, sponsored by AFS-230
DATAT COMMUNICATION: PARTY-LINE LOSS AND PILOT PERFORMANCE
(2008 – current)
Pilots use party-line information—communications between other pilots and controllers that are available over the same frequency—as a means to maintain situation awareness in current air traffic operations. As the transition from current voice-communications in air traffic operations is made toward a modernized data communications approach, determining what the impact of such a transition is on pilot performance will be of critical importance. If information is reduced, pilots may have a reduced global awareness of surrounding events, which may directly impact system safety. This research is designed to assess how party-line loss may adversely affect pilot performance in both normal flight operations and during unpredicted events. It is also designed to investigate the extent to which decision support tools may be used to mitigate the impact of party-line loss.
Project Funded by: Federal Aviation Administration
STAFFED NEXTGEN TOWERS
(2009 - current)
This project is designed to provide the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization Operations Planning (ATO-P) Group an analytical product to assess roles and responsibilities, information needs and flows, operational impacts, and requirements related to various Staffed NextGen Tower concepts. In this project, GMU facilitated a focus group discussing nominal and off-nominal circumstances including failures and emergencies, the dynamics of the system as a whole, the distribution of work across agents within the system, and the communication between those agents using specific scenarios representative of both current and proposed SNT Operational Concepts. The scenarios were designed to support knowledge elicitation, primarily from current air traffic controllers, to generate an understanding of the cognitive and physical work that needs to be performed by humans and systems in the SNT Concept. Subsequent to the focus group, verbal protocols were collected during simulated take-offs and landings to provide additional information.
Project Funded by: Federal Aviation Administration
ANALYSIS OF PILOT PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES FOR AUTOMATED FLIGHT DECKS
(1998-2009)
The relationship between Crew Resource Management (CRM) and flight deck automation management has been evident for some time. A number of carriers include specific automation skills under CRM, but the research community has yet to connect research in these two related areas. This effort integrates and extends what has been learned from prior research on proceduralized CRM to flight deck automation procedures and practices. The objectives of this grant are to: 1) develop advanced multivariate techniques for analyzing AQP data and answering more complex operational questions about pilot/crew performance; 2) model pilot/crew procedures and processes for two or three focal automation problems; and 4) use the model to develop new and better assessments of automation use in a fleet based on automation procedures and practices. The objectives build on a sequence from examining the current database information on crew automation performance, to isolating frequent and important automation-related problems, to computationally modeling the processes underlying those problems, and finally, to designing and evaluating model-based performance assessment tools. The results of this effort will be improved methods for collecting and analyzing automation performance data for an Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) setting, a specific cognitive model of particular problems in crew automation performance, and a prototype for the model development process.
Project Funded by: Federal Aviation Administration, AAR-100, sponsored by AFS-230
ABATEMENT OF AUTOMATION ERRORS BY TRAINING BASED ON COGNITIVE METHODS
(1999-2003)
Cockpit automation has changed the roles, responsibilities, and activities of pilots, leading to new types of errors on the flight deck. This research is focused on understanding those errors through the development of a computational cognitive model that describes how pilots interact with automated systems. The cognitive model under development is based on a cognitive task analysis supplemented with eye tracking data collected from commercial pilots flying a low-fidelity simulator. These data informed our design decisions about what information pilots are acquiring from the flight deck while working with automated systems during climb or descent. We have developed a working computational cognitive model, which is built in ACT-R. The model allowed us to develop potential interventions to improve pilot performance, which are being tested empirically.
Project Funded by: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
ANALYSIS OF COCKPIT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN MULTIPLE CARRIER ENVIRONMENTS
(1994-1999)
The long-term goal of transforming Crew Resource Management (CRM) from a set of attitudes to CRM-specific knowledge and skills is increasingly realistic. Knowledge of CRM is generally transferred through training in the classroom. Skills are usually trained in the flight simulator environment through Line-Oriented Flight Training (LOFT) and related sessions. Typically, a pilot, once qualified, undergoes LOFT once or twice a year. This six to twelve month time lag between training sessions has raised questions regarding the effectiveness of this training plan. One approach to increasing a crew's practice of CRM skills is to develop procedures that allow pilots to exercise CRM skills every time they fly on the line. Could CRM procedures be implemented in such a way that crews could systematically improve their CRM skills? This research grant addressed these questions through the design and implementation of prototype CRM training programs based on CRM procedures at a regional air carrier.
The grant evaluated the effects of CRM procedures training in Line Check and Line Operation Evaluation (LOE) performance of flight crews. The study employed procedure-based CRM that integrates CRM training and requirements into the standard operating procedures of the air carrier. Traditionally, CRM training has been treated as a separate training issue, but in this project, CRM was closely integrated with technical procedures. The grant team, with the strong cooperation of the regional air carrier, developed a set of CRM procedures that were trained under a carefully designed program called Advanced Crew Resource Management (ACRM). The empirical data collected over a 3-year period showed that the integration of CRM into procedures is effective in improving pilot performance.
Project Funded by: Federal Aviation Administration, AAR-100, sponsored by AFS-230