Center for the Study of Advanced Aeronautic Technologies

Visit CSAAT's web page: www.csulb.edu/~tstrybel/aavatmsrc/

What is CSAAT?

CSAAT is a new center for the study of human factors issues in air traffic managment and UAV operations. It is a unique facility that is based on collaboration, simulation, research and training.

Collaboration

CSAAT is a collaborative effort between Southern California Boeing Phantom Works Crew Systems, NASA Ames Research Center and the Psychology Department at California State University Long Beach.   It will serve as a research lab for Boeing, NASA, and other Air-Traffic-Management (ATM) and Unpiloted-Air-Vehicle (UAV) focused concerns.

Simulation

CSAAT can create desktop simulations of all facets of the national airspace system (NAS):

• aircraft having different levels of air traffic information in the cockpit
• air traffic control stations (includeing enroute, approach and TRACON sectors).
• UAVs with flight and payload stations.

Simulations can be created to examine various operational concepts of air traffic management, the impact of new operator decision aids and interface components, and the introduction of UAVs into the NAS.

Research

CSAAT will be used to investiage the human factors issues in advanced air vehicles, air traffic management concepts and technologies, and advanced air vehicle displays and controls. Some of our initial research questions are as follows.

• UAV integration in National and Global Airspace, homeland security and scientific systems.
• Procedural and technological issues in free flight and distributed air-ground traffic management (DAG-TM) conepts.
• Human-machine Interface issues in current and future air cockpits and air traffic controller workstations.

Training

CSAAT will be will be a comprehensive training venue for human factors, air traffic control and UAV-operations students. CSAAT will become an integral part of the newly developed Master of Science in Human Factors Psychology at Cal State Long Beach. Students will be trained in human factors of air vehicles and air traffic managment, and research methodologies such as real-time and part task simulations for investigating these issues.

The Lab

CSAAT occupies a suite of four rooms (approximately 1200 square feet of laboratory space) in the Psychology Building at California State University Long Beach. All rooms are carpeted, and have sound absorption panels on the ceilings and walls to reduce noise levels. If necessary, room dividers can provide additional isolation of voice communications. One dividing wall is a large, one-way mirror for unobtrusive observation of simulation activities.

Harware and Software

CSAAT has state of the art computer workstations and simulation software. Thanks to the generocity of The Boeing Company, CSAAT has approximately 20 workstations with superior graphics cabilities for running simulations of air traffic control workstations, air vehicle cockpits and UAV payload stations. NASA Ames Research Center donated software that enables real time simulations and evaluations of these components of the national airspace system.

Projects

Although CSAAT is just getting started, we have several projects in progress or under development.

Simulation Projects

CSULB - NASA Ames Flight Deck Research Group Joint Simulation/Demonstration of UAV flight in NAS.

The long-term objective of this project is to simulate and evaluate air traffic managment issues for UAVs in low altitude patrol or loiter . UAVs might consider adjusting flight path, speed, and altitude to maintain separation with moving weather, proximal traffic, flight corridors/waypoints and other UAVs flying in formation. We also intend to integrate and fly USIM, a simulation of Shadow UAV in MACS and CDTI simulation environments. Our initial steps in this project include.

• Demonstrating that a joint simulation between CSULB and Ames is feasible and useful, and identify any problems that must be resolved for CSULB to play a larger role in future simulations. CSULB and NASA Ames have conducted several connectivity tests and simulation shakedowns, and these suggest that joint demonstrations are feasible and attractive.
• The initial scenario will beUAVs in low altitude flight (under the approach path) around DFW (patrolling reservoirs in the near vicinity). UAVs will be simulated with modified, small aircraft model and a flight path that is as close to a UAV patrol or a reservoir (as close to an elliptical path) as possible, yet still feasible in the current MACS/CDTI configuration. We are avoiding as much as possible, any major software modifications for the initial demonstration.

Research Projects

Evaluation of 3D audio cuing in UAV operator stations.

A proposal was submitted to the Army/NASA Rotocraft Division for research on the effectiveness of audio spatial cueing in timesharing tasks, with uncertainty regarding the presence/absence of targets, the precision of the spatial cues in specifying the taget and operator workload are manipulated.

More projects coming soon!