Airspace Operations Lab @ NASA Ames

A human-in-the-loop simulation was conducted that examined off-nominal and tactical conflict situations in an advanced Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) environment. Traffic levels were set at two times (2X) and three times (3X) current day levels and the handling of tactical conflict situations was done either with or without support from Tactical Separation Assisted Flight Environment (TSAFE) automation. Strategic conflicts and all routine tasks performed in today's system were handled by ground-based automation. This paper focuses on the response strategies observed in two scripted tactical conflict situations and how they differed according to whether or not automated resolution support was provided by TSAFE. An examination of the two situations revealed that when TSAFE automation was active, participants tended to provide additional, complementary maneuvers to supplement the tactical vector issued by TSAFE. This also included a greater tendency to use both aircraft in a conflict pair. When TSAFE support was not available, participants tended to use single vector or altitude maneuvers and were more likely to attempt resolutions using a single aircraft as well. Some issues that arose through the operations simulated in this study related to the need for the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) to be able to have final authority over the issuance of TSAFE maneuvers as well as the importance of having awareness of the immediate traffic situation in making effective and safe time-critical decisions.