The Air Traffic Control Advanced Research Simulator (ATCARS) simulator was designed to allow testing the effects of new
equipment and procedures on controller workload, situation awareness,
and performance.
ATCARS was developed through a software development collaboration between
Dennis Rester at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute and Brad Jessup from Gallium, Inc. ATCARS allows
simulating two DSR sectors either individually or one at a time.
ATCARS uses HP Alphas running TRU64 UNIX to drive one 20" x 20" SONY monitor that
shows the R-side situation display and a 20" D-side CRD display for each sector.
Pseudo pilots can communicate with controllers working at the DSR workstations using
voice over IP digital audio communications. Pseudo pilots enter messages that
enact clearances issued by controllers to specific aircraft.
Scenario generation software is also available that allows easily
building scenarios in which aircraft fly specific flight plans on a
schedule unless an alternate clearance is provided by the controller.
Scripted flight paths can be easily reviewed and modified. The
simulation of track and flight input is provided by the InterMAPhics
Advanced Air Traffic Simulator (IAATS).
Several methods for collecting data are available, including on-line
recording of controller and aircraft activities and pilot-controller
communications. Auxiliary data can be collected, such as real-time
subjective workload estimates.
ATCARS Process Diagram (PDF)
IAATS
The IAATS is designed to be simple and quick to use. A
user does not require any programming experience. Although a user should have
ATC experience to be able to create realistic scenarios, it is not necessary;
someone with limited ATC experience can easily create usable scenarios using
IAATS. The scenarios created by IAATS are used in the ATCARS
system. The system includes two DSR R-Side and D-Side displays that are used by
one or two Active Controllers. There are also one or more Pseudo Pilot
positions that handle pilot and adjacent “non-active” controller duties for all
aircraft in the scenario.
The Scenario Editor (IAATS) can be used in two separate modes.
The first mode is the Offline Scenario Creation mode. In this mode the user
creates an airspace and scenario and saves them to an XML file. The second mode
is the Online Scenario Simulation mode. In this mode the Scenario Editor acts as
a Simulator sending track updates etc., to the DSR Display application. The Scenario
Editor GUI acts as a Ghost Pilot. The Scenario Editor user sees aircraft flying
on the Scenario Editor Situation Display exactly as the DSR controller sees them on
the DSR R-Side Display. This combined scenario creation and simulation capability
is very powerful. It allows the Scenario Editor user the ability to change the
scenario “on-the-fly”.
Flight Strip Layout Editor
The Flight Strip Layout Editor (FSLEditor) component of
the Flight Strip Process (FSP) allows a user to create and/or modify strip
layouts using a drag-and-drop graphical interface. Strips are printed by
the Flight Strip Printer Driver (FSPDriver)
component of the FSP. A strip contains a number of flight plan-related fields
positioned at particular locations on the strip. Fields can be printed in
either large or small font and in reverse video on the strip (NAS-MD-314,
Appendix B).
A strip also contains lines and graphical symbols. The FSLEditor
allows a user to modify the positioning of these textual and symbolic fields
within the strip as well as the font size and the reverse video or normal print
characteristics. The FSLEditor is intended as a tool for Human-Factors
analysis during application testing wherein the effectiveness of various strip
layouts is evaluated by monitoring their effect on the performance of the
application's end-users.
Tag Layout Editor
The Tag Layout Editor (TLEditor) allows a user to create
and/or modify contact data tag layouts using a drag-and-drop graphical
interface. Contacts are objects on an InterMAPhics situation display that are
implemented using the InterMAPhics Contact Facility DDL. A contact data tag
(also known as a data block) is a block of textual and
symbolic fields that is usually attached to the contact's position symbol via a
leader line. The TLEditor allows a user to modify the positioning of these
textual and symbolic fields within the data tag block.
Each application also has static rules hard-coded into its program about
the data contained in each of the available fields that can be placed into
a data tag layout. These static rules determine, to a certain
extent, the operational effectiveness of the positioning of certain fields in
the data tag. The TLEditor provides limited editing of static rules.
Specifically, fields that are placed on top of one another in the TLEditor indicate that their
display is to be automatically time-shared, both in the TLEditor
and in the end application. The TLEditor is intended as a tool for Human-Factors
analysis during application testing wherein the effectiveness of various tag
layouts is evaluated by monitoring their effect on the performance of the
application's end-users.