Grant: Alliance Grants

The airspace will rapidly change in the next 15 years with increased automation of air traffic control, flight path tracking with strong time constraints and big data exchange between the aircraft and ground control for communication. However, little information is available to understand the impact of this transformation on the pilot's tasks and how to design the flight deck to reduce the risk of human error due to information overload. This project will design and validate, through pilot usability tests, innovative avionics solutions for presentation of information, human-machine interaction, automation and decision support for the topics of trajectory-based operations, information exchange and airport surface navigation i.e., taxiing. The results of this project will be used to define new flight deck and avionics functionalities required to facilitate pilot integration with future airspace requirements and ensure safe operations. Outcomes of this project will provide the needed guidance to Canadian aircraft and avionics manufacturers to address the airspace development roadmap from the pilot's perspective. It will place Canadian airspace users at the forefront of the digital transformation in the flight deck to take advantage of the "best equipped, best served" rule to benefit from preferred routing, fuel reduction and environmental benefits. Furthermore, it will strengthen Canada's leadership position in the aviation industry to the fields of human factors and avionics. Results obtained from user-centered design activities and extensive pilot-in-the-loop usability testing will support evidence-based decision making by key international regulatory bodies in which Canada is involved e.g., ICAO, helping maintain Canada's leadership role.