A Shared Interactive Space in Mixed Reality for Collaborative Digital Tower Operations

Air transportation is undergoing a metamorphic transformation with digital towers (DTs) replacing physical air traffic control (ATC) towers by reproducing live camera feeds of out-of-tower (OOT) views using massive immersive spatial displays. With the recent pandemic-induced decline in air traffic,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality Workshops (Online) pp. 615 - 621
Main Authors: Mohan, Pallavi, Alam, Sameer, Nadirsha, T.N. Mohammed, Lilith, Nimrod, Svensson, Asa
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01.10.2022
Subjects:
Aerospace
Aerospace electronics
Applied computing
Collaboration
Human-centered computing
Mixed reality
Poles and towers
Prototypes
Ubiquitous and mobile computing systems and tools
Virtual reality
Visualization
ISSN:2771-1110
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Air transportation is undergoing a metamorphic transformation with digital towers (DTs) replacing physical air traffic control (ATC) towers by reproducing live camera feeds of out-of-tower (OOT) views using massive immersive spatial displays. With the recent pandemic-induced decline in air traffic, the quest to introduce cost-effective alternatives for DTs has gained importance. Recent developments in mixed reality (MR)-based visualizations allow air traffic systems to be better represented stereoscopically in an interactive virtual space. Moreover, MR offers customizable immersion, allowing air traffic control officers (ATCOs) to maintain their view of both environment and OOT view, as in a physical tower. Air traffic control, is, however, fundamentally a collaborative activity that requires clear and concise coordination between controllers and pilots to ensure an orderly flow of traffic. This paper presents a collaborative DT prototype system visualized in MR, that allows multiple controllers wearing MR headsets, such as Microsoft HoloLens 2, to view and interact with a shared visualization of the aerodrome, even if they are remotely located. We introduce collaborative routing capabilities to the system, whereby two controllers can collaboratively decide on taxiway routing for an arriving aircraft by interactively selecting and approving or rejecting routes in a shared MR space. We evaluate the prototype system through a preliminary assessment to investigate controllers' perceptions of situation awareness and workload while using the system. This paper presents initial results of our evaluation. Key findings include a faster Time-To-Decision and higher situation awareness when controllers collaborated by using the proposed system. The results demonstrate promising potential for MR-based collaboration for ATC operations, and for the proposed prototype to mature into a fully self-contained, interactive and portable air traffic control system.
ISSN:2771-1110
DOI:10.1109/ISMAR-Adjunct57072.2022.00128