Design and evaluation of a GUI for operator involvement in airborne conflict detection and resolution

Like manned aircraft, UAVs need the capability to timely detect and avoid other traffic. In case of a fully autonomous detect, sense and avoid system, every falsely identified threat will cause an unnecessary avoidance maneuver. Furthermore, information that is not explicitly available to the avoidance function cannot be taken into account when computing a maneuver. Given a situation where the time to conflict provides sufficient margin, involving the human operator in the detect, sense and avoid cycle can mitigate these issues. With the appropriate level of system authority, it is possible to combine collision avoidance function availability and continuity (e.g. in case of a control link failure) with the benefits that can be obtained from operator involvement. This paper discusses the integration of conflict probing data into a cockpit display of traffic information and into an enhanced/synthetic vision primary flight display. The resulting user interface concept is intended to support the operator in the assessment of the traffic situation, providing an adequate understanding of the impact of maneuvering on the future separation with traffic. Following this, the design of an experiment to explore the impact of the conflict probes on conflict assessment and maneuvering is presented. Results from an initial evaluation show an improvement in the assessment of the traffic situation, resulting in more effective and efficient conflict resolution maneuvers, and less unwarranted maneuvers.