Using Coding Schemes to RepresentWeather Conditions on Air Traffic Control Displays

摘要

Air traffic controllers need to ensure safe and quick flow of air traffic. Inclement weather conditions may delay orhinder aircraft from landing and departing safely. Three coding schemes for precipitation are used in three air trafficcontrol systems, Standard Terminal Automation Replacement Systems (STARS), Integrated Terminal WeatherSystem (ITWS), and Automated Radar Terminal Systems Color Display (ACD). The objective of this study is todetermine the best coding scheme among the three as well as compare four-level against six-level coding scheme.Eighteen male subjects completed four tasks similar to those of air traffic controllers. The response time and percentof correctness were analyzed. Task 1 was to name the weather level. Task 2 was to name the highest weather levelpresented. Task 3 asked the subject to determine whether a datablock representing aircraft can land safely. And task4 asked the subject whether two datablocks had enough separation. The results showed that the STARS codingscheme had the fastest response time. Also, coding schemes with four levels resulted in better performance than sixlevels. Tasks that dealt with two blocks took longer than tasks involving just one block. The results could be usedfor designing future ATC weather displays.