Functional presentation of travel opportunities in flexible use airspace: an EID of an airborne conflict support tool

In a flexible airspace environment the pilot disposes of an increased amount of travel opportunities. At the same time the airspace traffic situation becomes more complex and the aircraft separation assurance task is shifted towards the cockpit. The design paradigm of ecological interface design is applied to support the pilot with the airborne planning of efficient trajectory paths that maintain spatial separation from other traffic. The desired pilot behavior is achieved by visualizing travel-relevant airspace affordances in terms of realistic aircraft locomotion. As a result, a novel interface the "state vector envelope" presents safe and efficient travel opportunities in a state vector field. The concept has been evaluated through on-line simulations of a number of basic conflict situations