Design of an airborne three-dimensional separation assistance display

In the context of the NextGen and SESAR future airspace programmes, this paper describes a concept for an Airborne Separation Assurance (ASAS) display, that is designed to aid pilots in their task of self-separation, by visualizing the possibilities for conflict resolution that the airspace provides. This work is part of an ongoing research towards an ecological design of a separation assistance interface that can present all the relevant properties of the spatio-temporal separation problem. A work-domain analysis is described from which several perspective projections of traffic properties and travel constraints are derived. A display concept is proposed that presents heading and altitude action possibilities in a flight-path angle - track angle action space. Key issues in the current design are discussed, with recommendations for future work.