The Assessment of Situation Awareness and Workload

This paper presents a concept which warrants a highest possible degree of situation awareness and efficient man−machine interaction on the flight deck, not being confined to the cockpit domain, though. This concept offers the solution to counteract the possible negative consequences of certain flight situations, which are, usually not known in advance, susceptible to pilot errors. It is founded on significant advances in cognitive system engineering in order to accomplish and really warrant complementary deployment of automation technology at the pilot's working station in favor of flight safety and mission effectiveness. These technologies enable a cockpit automation in order to systematically comply with the requirements of ‘Human−Centered Automation (HCA)’. They also allow to quantify at which degree these requirements are met. The underlying approach behind the concept will be illustrated in this paper by the functional concept and development of the cockpit assistant system CASSY. It has been extensively tested in flight simulators and has been successfully field tested with the ATTAS (Advanced Technologies Test Aircraft System) of the DLR. Some of the results of these flight trials will also be presented in this paper.