The Study Of Air Traffic Controllers' Eye Movements Under Different Scenarios

With the rapid development of the national economy,the demand for air transport continues to increase.As a result,air traffic grows sustainably.The extensive applications of information technology and automation technology in the air traffic management(ATM)system,not only improve the capability of the system,but also increase the complexity of the system.As a key component of the ATM system,the air traffic controllers play an important role in the safe and efficient operation of the system.In this ?Human-Machine-Environment – Management? complex system,controllers collect relevant information through various sources and quickly make decisions to direct flights operate safely and smoothly.A large number of studies have been done focusing on the workload and cognitive behavior of the controller.However,few studies have been given to the study on the way how controllers collect information.Controllers mainly acquire traffic information through visual system while controlling air traffic.Thus,the study on the controller eye movements is very important for improving the safety and efficiency of air transportation.This thesis presents the investigation on air traffic controller's eye movement from both qualitative and quantitative point of view by leveraging statistical analysis and data mining techniques.Different air traffic simulations scenarios are set up,then eye movements data of different levels of air traffic controllers are collected during real-time simulations.The fixation and saccades patterns of controllers are analyzed.It is found that both experts and novice controllers can adjust their visual search and visual scanning strategies according to the scene,while experts and novices use different visual search strategies and visual scanning strategies to control traffic under the same scene.The difference on the key indicators of eye movements between controllers is checked by Mann-Whitney U test.In the second part of this thesis,the characteristic and differences on the controller's cognitive model and visual search patterns under different workload scenarios are discussed.Controller's mental workload is compared between different scenarios.The effects of task complexity and time-on-task on eye movements are investigated.The outcomes of this study have a potential values to the training air traffic controllers and improving the efficiency of ATM system.It also contributes to our understanding of human information seeking behaviors in complex dynamical environments.