Safety and Workload Assessment of Lost C2 Link on Seoul-Jeju Route

초록

One of the most distinctive characteristics of the remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) is the absence of an onboard pilot. Because the aircraft is remotely controlled by the command and control (C2) link, it is important to establish procedures for a lost C2 link and understand their impacts. In this paper, three lost C2 link procedures (two return-to-base scenarios and one continue-to-destination scenario) are developed on a route between Seoul and Jeju: one of the busiest air routes in the world. Then, human-in-the-loop simulations of an RPAS in a lost C2 link situation are performed with a student controller and two experienced controllers. The simulation results are analyzed in terms of safety and controller workload metrics. The two return-to-base scenarios showed better scores than the continue-to-destination scenario in all the metrics. The well clear alert, which is a safety metric devised for RPAS operations, happened only in the continue-to-destination scenario. Although the subjective surveys did not show notable workload differences among the three scenarios, the participating controllers issued more heading change commands to surrounding traffic in the continue-to-destination scenario than in the two return-to-base scenarios, which suggests that controller workload is higher.

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