Implementation of an air traffic control simulation environment for human multitasking research

Abstract

In today’s work environments, the frequent change between different tasks of workers is necessary in many jobs, to fulfil given requirements and execute duties successfully. Methods to increase efficiency in such a multitasking environment result in improving overall productivity of organizations of all different kinds. Ongoing research tries to find ways to make human multitasking more efficient by using computer technology as an aid. [Lin23], for instance, proposes in his work that software agents can aid in finding the best moment for a task switch, to increase overall performance of the worker. To be able to evaluate research concerning multitasking optimization of real world jobs, a simulation of a real-world working environment is necessary. This thesis proposes the simulation of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and features the implementation and subsequent evaluation of such a simulation in the scope of multitasking research. To ensure research to be as efficient as possible, this simulation environment should be free for research, light-weight and easy to set-up and operate. Light-weight means, the simulation environment should run on a standard consumer notebook. Easy means, that setting-up the software can be accomplished in less than 30 minutes and without in-depth knowledge of the ATC domain. Furthermore, non-ATC participants can be trained to operate single tasks of the simulation within 15 minutes. To concept an ATC simulation environment, realizing the aforementioned characteristics, this work establishes a list of functional and non functional requirements. As research methodologies, the systematic literature review described by [Kit07], the Design Science approach developed by Hevner et al. [HMPR04] and laboratory experiments in connection with a user study are used. The latter features,among others, an in-depth analysis and comparison of the performance of members of two different groups, accomplishing tasks within the created simulation environment. The first group consists of participants with knowledge of the aviation and ATC domain, the second group of participants without domain knowledge. The thesis concluded with the established findings during the user study and a discussion in how they can be integrated into related work.