The design and evaluation of a traffic situation display for a SATS self controlled area

Graphical, interactive, and intelligent displays will be an integral part of the future of aviation cockpits. NASA´s vision for a national small airport transportation system based on self controlled areas is a good test case for the challenge of designing avionics functionality to support pilots in performing new flight procedures - flight procedures that have the potential of improving the efficiency of our National Airspace System. The authors developed and evaluated a primary flight display and traffic situation display that includes elements of synthetic vision, highway-in-the-sky, conflict detection and artificial intelligence. The displays were evaluated in formal flight experiments to judge their value and effects in assisting pilots in performing NASA´s proposed high volume operations. The experiments measured situation awareness, workload, approach accuracy, and decision quality.