Development of an ATC Tower Simulator to Simulate Ground Operations

The expected growth in air traffic has resulted in many projects attempting to mitigate the problem of air traffic control, particularly at airports. These projects have focused on characterizing the workload of the air traffic control officer and/or introducing automated technology to assist in his or her responsibilities. Many of these projects have used existing simulation facilities and technology or developed analogous environments to simulate the air traffic control tower. However, such high-fidelity simulation facilities are in limited loca- tions or not easily accessible. Results gathered in simplified environments, while accurate in a controlled setting, may be limited in their extrapolation to real-world applications. Furthermore, little guidance is provided in the literature for developing an ATC tower micro-world, particularly in terms of knowing which elements are most necessary to simu- late and the most effective way to actualize such functions. In this paper, we present the development of an air traffic control tower simulator, specifically for the ground controller, intended for the design and validation of potential automated concepts. We discuss our reasoning for the simulation of specific elements, the hardware and the software used, and our methodology for simulating ATC operations within the tower. This paper concludes with lessons learned and results from the simulation validation, a novel 10-question 5-point Likert scale questionnaire.