ECHOMOD provides concepts and ontologies for representing the cognitive demands of individual work in real time at the work interface. In partnership with Airservices Australia, ECHOMOD will be developed in the air traffic management domain where the real-time demands on controllers pose a modelling challenge.
ECHOMOD Research Leader: A/Prof Andrew Neal
Pictured: Stefan Lehmann, Stephanie Stankovic, Mike Humphreys (10%), Andrew Neal (50%),
Sam Hasenbosch, Phil Waller (70%) Not Pictured: Roger Remington (10%), John Guimelli
For more information, see the COSE People pages.
What will ECHOMOD achieve?
In air traffic management (ATM) organisations worldwide, there is strong effort underway to design, validate and implement the next generation of ATM systems. A wide range of sub-systems and policies are under development, including aspects such as: surveillance capabilities, airspace sector structure, separation standards, co-ordination mechanisms and decision support tools. These components are being re-designed to accommodate a level of traffic demand that is expected to exceed capacity in Australia, the US and Europe by 2016. Evaluation tools and methods are required to determine how this change in demand, and the corresponding deployment of new technologies and procedures, will influence the future role of air traffic controllers (ATCOs), as well as their behaviour and mental workload.
In ECHOMOD we are developing operator modelling concepts and ontologies that allow evaluation of individual operator performance in complex, safety-critical domains. In partnership with Airservices Australia, ECHOMOD will initially focus on the air traffic domain where the dynamic and complex nature of ATCO task demands pose a modelling challenge. Our approach differs from those based on either task network or cognitive architecture models which have previously failed to capture the adaptive component of human behaviour.
Who will benefit?
In the initial case our end users will be human factors (HF) consultants providing services to system engineers within Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs). These agencies are responsible for improving ATM system capacity and efficiency whilst ensuring safe operation within the constraints of individual operators. In the longer term our end users will be system engineers within other safety-critical, complex work domains. All of these users will benefit from the ability to test concepts prior to implementation, and then to validate implementations prior to human-in-the-loop activities.
Key features
ECHOMOD methods and supporting tools will include the following:- A modelling concept for adaptive behaviour that will deliver a more complete representation of operators in complex work domains.
- A simulation environment for modelling the behaviour of an expert ATCO and estimating workload that will provide earlier evaluation of proposed ICT changes.
- An analytic framework for representing task complexity and controller (human or synthetic) behaviour that will provide a quantitative view of system performance.
Progress
We have an initial project in progress within Airservices Australia to support the HF evaluation of a decision support tool prior to implementation. This work includes a literature review of the evaluation of similar technologies deployed in the US and Europe, and the evaluation of alternative observation technologies suited to the ATM environment. Project members have also attended the 8th ATM Seminar and identified contacts within international ANSPs and collaboration opportunities with other ATM researchers related to the development of automation and human performance concepts. Previously, a detailed review of a prior model of ATCO behaviour was completed, and the requirements of an enhanced model have been specified.
Publications
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