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4CAS is currently undergoing R&D and human factors testing funded by The Lindbergh Foundation . Stay tuned for more research reports as they become available.
Study E02: For full writeup, see Experiment Two, 12 pilots, 4 scenarios, repeated as mirror-images, also funded by The Wolf Aviation Fund. Here is a summary table.
Study E01: Below is a description of Experiment One, the first formal, full, successful test of 4CAS, underwritten by The Wolf Aviation Fund.
Synopsis: This constitutes the first successful controlled experiment of a maneuver space-based collision avoidance system (4CAS). Eight licensed general aviation pilots flew a total of eight simulated free flight scenarios, with the goal of deviating as little as possible from a pre-assigned flight path while maintaining standard enroute separation from traffic (5 nm / 1000’). The task involved crossing a bi-directional traffic stream with aircraft flowing north or south, while approaching from either 45, 135, 225, or 315 degrees. Two navigational aids were used, either a standard cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI), or the CDTI together with 4CAS.
Results showed superiority of the CDTI + 4CAS condition for one dependent measure of efficiency (average path length), two measures of safety (maneuver onset time and duration of separation violations), and two measures of workload (number of maneuver types made and enjoyability of use). No practice or fatigue effects were seen. Seven other dependent measures showed either trend or at least directionality in favor of 4CAS.
Preliminary study 2: The following PowerPoint conference poster contains details: ISAP conference poster
Synopsis: 12 non-pilot volunteers at Sweden's Linköping Institute of Technology participated in the world's first pre-test of 4CAS. A single traffic conflict scenario was presented. Conflict avoidance with 4CAS+CDTI was compared to the CDTI-only control. Results were non-significant, but did indicate trend for 4CAS+CDTI superiority (3 conflicts avoided with CDTI only, versus 9 avoided with 4CAS+CDTI, p < .09).
Preliminary study 1: Read the following papers for details: Sector Congestion Analytical Modeling Program, Aviation Psychology Conference Paper
Synopsis: Traffic "congestion" in an air traffic control sector is currently estimated simply by the number of aircraft physically present in the airspace. However, congestion can be better modeled as the degree to which aircraft maneuver is restricted within the maneuver space.
A metric of congestion was developed based on this degree of restriction. This metric was a significantly better predictor of the eventual scenario-wide minimum range achieved to closest traffic by a total of 50 commercial airline pilots flying 344 free flight scenario runs.
This figure shows linear data fits. The MS-based metric (SCAMP) predicted 50% more variance in the scenario-wide minimum range than did the number of aircraft (N).
As expected, N correlates with SCAMP. After controlling for N, the remaining partial correlation of SCAMP with scenario-wide minimum range was still significant (rpartial = -.36, p < .001, 1-tailed).
This means that SCAMP was a significantly better predictor of separation maintenance in free flight than the currently used metric (number of aircraft in the sector). This constitutes support for the theoretical validity and significance of the maneuver space.
©2006 Maneuver Space Technologies, LLC