WILDLIFE SURVEILLANCE CONCEPT—AVIAN RADAR KNOWLEDGE ELICITATION ACTIVITY 1

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Concept Development and Validation Branch held a Knowledge Elicitation Activity (KEA) for the Wildlife Surveillance Concept (WiSC) in February 2014. The purpose of this activity, which was funded by the FAA Airport Technology Research and Development Branch, was to elicit information from stakeholders. The researchers convened a panel of certified professional controllers, front line managers, and commercial airline pilots to learn how they currently handle bird threat information and their perspectives on the potential introduction of supplemental bird threat information into the air traffic control (ATC) environment via airport avian radar systems.

This KEA served as the first in a series of research activities aimed at maturing the WiSC and gathering information to prepare the Concept of Operations document. The purpose of this report is to provide an in-depth summary of the KEA and its findings.

Participants reviewed and validated five common operational situations depicting how bird threat information is managed and disseminated today and the changes that might be anticipated with the introduction of more precise and timely bird threat information. In addition, participants provided feedback on notional graphical and textual display options for providing this supplemental information on ATC displays.

All participants confirmed the value of integrating more timely and precise supplemental bird threat information into the ATC environment. In addition, they identified areas requiring further investigation. For example, they suggested research is needed to quantify the potential benefit of supplemental bird threat information on aviation safety, to ensure that controller and pilot workload levels and performance are not adversely impacted by the new information, and to ensure that the new information is optimally integrated into the ATC operational environment.

DOT/FAA/TC-16-28
Authors: Mark Hale and Anton Koros