Center/tracon Automation System: Development And Evaluation In The Field

INTRODUCTION Technological advances are changing the way that advanced air traffic control automation should be developed and assessed. Current standards and practices of system development place field testing at the end of the development process, during system production and deployment. This delays our understanding of the true characteristics of the system; that is, its emergent properties as a consequence of implementation in the operational environment, how the tool is used and the myriad interactions and interdependencies between system components. While such practices may have been suitable for manual control systems, where requirements for hardware and personnel can be neatly separated and defined, they are becoming quickly outdated for systems that are harnessing advanced information technology. Current understanding of such systems is limited and criteria for safe and effective system performance are largely undefined. If field testing is delayed until the late stages of dev