A Multi-Fidelity Simulation Environment for Human-In-The-Loop Studies of Distributed Air Ground Traffic Management

Abstract

This paper describes a Distributed Air Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM) simulation environment created at NASA Ames Research Center for conducting human-in-the-loop evaluations of new concepts for managing and controlling air traffic. The simulation environment combines high fidelity full mission flight simulators with mid-fidelity air traffic controller/manager workstations as well as low to mid-fidelity desktop workstations for additional pilots, controllers, experiment managers and observers. The simulation is distributed amongst different facilities and laboratories at Ames and provides for connecting multiple off-site simulators via the Internet. The Crew Activity Tracking System (CATS) can be attached for real-time tracking and analysis of pilot and controller activities, and intelligent agents can supplant ancillary human participants.