A selection of excerpts from field debriefs with test site crews for CON tests and the corresponding topic category.
CON 1 Information:
Quality of alerts 3
There are like 2 uses for those sensors. One is so that the aircraft does not run into something in the building and the second is also situational awareness.
Information meets user: Speed of data transfer
6 I think that is really critical as fast as you can tell us where is and how fast and what it is doing so we can take some manual action to avoid it.
Operator experience:
Situation Awareness 6
We have live tracking we know where it is and we are confident we know where it is as long as your get positive affirmation that there is a person somehow responsive and I think that is the whole idea of the UTM client make sure still alive and functional.
Method 1
Automation: Status
7
Like last year when we did dynamic replan we trying to do specialized cases the same points potentially we didn’t run across but the fact that if you go rogue you can never go back and it’s nice to have alerts but we also can go back.
Concept: Design of
concept 4
So, you can have another aircraft following a little ways behind you, your track is closing behind you so he is good to fly behind you but your next track would involve going backward so you would not get clearance to [go] there.
CON 2 Information:
Sharing information 8
The main information for us in terms of sharing information amongst USS is that if an operation has gone rogue to be alerted to that, that, or be alerted to that event so that we can you know, inform or, or educate any of the, flights that are handled under, under our USS.
Information meets user: Confidence in information 14
If I, in the event of a non-planned emergency where I need to, I know the aircraft is returning and I'm concerned I'm a potentially in the way, so I need to have a way that I can look at it at glance and see that, uh, that I need to clear or that I need to change what, what I'm doing.
Operator experience:
Situation Awareness
4
I think that positions are very important. That tells you exactly where on the aircraft is that and allows you to make sure that you maintain your separation from each other.
Method: Procedures for operations
5
We have to generate airspace for it, which we do. That airspace is now at an increased priority. So it always made any other vehicle that was maybe nearby, would make it rogue because you were conflicting with a priority airspace. So just because I'm a guy who's misbehaving...is kicking everybody else and making them go rogue, is that really a fair thing to do?
CON 4 Information: Usefulness
25 My map is like super open and I know it’s not cluttered, so planning a map for emissions for me was super easy until the negotiations started and I couldn’t see my own plan. ‘Cause I couldn’t click on my own plan.
Information meets user: Desired information
14 I would like back from the USS about how close to compliance I am. So
that if I'm slow I could speed the craft up and get back in compliance with my plan or if I’m going to fast I could slow down.
Operator Experience: SA (lack of)
11 We couldn’t communicate with anybody, we had no contact information.
So, basically, we would put a plan it, we’d get rejected, we’d change it, and we could see what others had planned or tried to plan, we couldn’t tell what, so then we’d just make a boundary that would intersect with the fewest lines ... We could see other operations, but like we were in very small areas, so we only grabbed just small chunks of pie, and that seemed to work better.
Method: Gaming the system
23 The other thing is, cost … So, if we want to go and inspect the water tower and we’re making money here, we have to do this, and there’s somebody that just has a huge area … in real life, we would have just flown that 107 and we would have just avoided it [the other vehicle].
Automation: Display conventions
25 All users should kind of appear the same to the UTM. The UTM shouldn't
necessarily know if it's a human operating or an autonomous system right, it’s getting the same information. And then on the other side it should be given the same information out, and then however the user as sophisticated as they want to be with it, they can do.
Concept: Usage rules
15 The system is really vulnerable to somebody just being like “I want this whole county for all day.” Like you could easily have done that. Be like “Oh, I guess that’s what we do!” And so, some kind of incentivization to be as efficient with your flight plan as possible is good.
CON 5 Information: Usefulness
29 I was pretty impressed by the notifications on just our restricted airspace. Um, just with the proximity warning and then actually crossing it was dead on and seemed to work pretty great.
Information meets user: Alerting
10 Yeah, a reminder while you are submitting the flight plan would maybe be
nice, but I don’t need the 30-second reminder the whole time because I already knew it.
Operator experience:
Situation Awareness
18 Like you said, you announce that there’s a rogue aircraft, but you won’t tell people where. I guess if it was me operating, if you announced that there’s a rogue aircraft, I want to know where it’s at. If it’s not going to be a factor for me, then I don’t even want to know it’s rogue, because you hear that and you’re constantly………just announcing rogue isn’t necessarily beneficial.
Method: Procedures for event
5 We have a two-minute, an arbitrary but a two minute period for you to
vacate the airspace. So, um, so there's actually kind of hard to tell, but there's actually two volumes. Is the larger volume, the original one still stays in place and, but it's end time gets shortened, but it's still two, you still have two minutes of time in there.
Automation: Functionality
13 The goal, you know, a lot of folks want full automation, so if you do more
of that, we've got to add more smarts into the system to actually be able to make those, I'd say pilot kind of choices.
Concept – Airspace rules
17 You can’t cross out – so, that goes back to how big of a performance
geography do you need, because you can’t – even if the pilot crosses out of their protective geography, what’s kind of reserved for them, that impacts others. So, just saying “Hey, the pilot understands and is going to try to rectify,” that could impact somebody else so, that part, you know .... That’s just gonna lead to people requesting a larger amount of airspace for a longer amount of time.