ABZ 2023
ABZ 2023
Arrival Manager
Arrival Manager
Case Study
Case Study
Embedded Files
News: October 24th 2023, a special issue of Springer STTT International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer has been accepted and is welcoming submissions on AMAN case study.
AMAN Special issue schedule
Current state in process: papers under review
Extended deadline: date passed (no further extension will be granted), to submit:
Create an account on EQUINOCS for STTT journal
Select submit on the let panel
Select "Special Issue - Special Issues" in the main page
Select submit paper in the line "ABZ232 AMAN - ABZ23 AMAN" at the very bottom of the page
Initial submission deadline: 19 January 2024
Review date: 22 March 2024
Notification to authors: 29 March 2024
Submission of revised version from authors: 22 April 2024
Review date of revisions: 31 April 2024
Final notification to authors: 12 May 2024
Camera-ready submission: 30 May 2024
News: June 1st 2023, papers in the ABZ Case Study track presented at ABZ 2023
Presenters have been proposed to share their presentation (if they agree, they will appear below)
ABZ steering committee has organized a repository for ABZ conference series case studies, papers, models ... are available there.
A special issue of a journal is under preparation ... stay tuned to learn more about it (drop an email to palanque@irit.fr if you want to be sure
News:March 6th 2023, 4 papers accepted to the Case Study track
Sebastian Stock, Fabian Vu, David Geleßus, Michael Leuschel and Atif Mashkoor, Modeling and Analysis of a Safety-critical Interactive System through VOs Presenter: David Geleßus
Alcino Cunha, Nuno Macedo and Eunsuk Kang. Task Model Design and Analysis with Alloy, Presenter: Alcino Cunha
Amel Mammar and Michael Leuschel. Modeling and Verifying an Arrival Manager using Event-B. Presenters: Amel Mammar and Michael Leuschel. Slides here
Andrea Bombarda, Silvia Bonfanti and Angelo Gargantini, Formal MVC: a pattern for the integration of ASM specifications in UI development. Presenter: Angelo Gargantini. Slides here
News: Dec. 1st 2022, deadline for the submissions to the Case Study track is extended:
Abstract submission: January 06, 2022 AoE
Paper submission: January 13, 2022 AoE
Notification: March 06, 2023
Final version: March 27, 2023
News: Oct. 31 2022 - We have received several questions and requests about the case study. The answers to these questions are provided in the new version of the case study description. Here is the version 1.1.
News: Sept 19th 2022 Here is the version 1.0 of the case study for ABZ 2023. It contains more details about the work of Air Traffic Controller (ATCo) and details about the User Interface and its interactions. If something remains unclear, please let us know and we will revise the descriptions.
José and Phil.
This case study brings in the issues specific to the domain of interactive systems. Important aspects are:
the hardware / software integration (e.g. keyboard, mouse, screen)
the fact that the system is meant to support work of people
the fact that during execution operator can still provide input and receive output about the current status of execution
the fact that presented information must be noticed and understood by the operators (i.e. there is a need to know what the operators know and can understand)
the fact that several (in that case two) users collaborate together to perform the work
the fact that automation of operators' tasks can have a huge impact on work
User as a key component
User as a key component
User input unpredictable
Output must be perceived by users
Output must be understood by users
Users use the system to perform tasks and work
The reactive nature of interactive systems
Informal description of the case study
The Air Traffic Control activity in the TMA (Terminal Manoeuvring Area) is an intense collaborative activity involving at minimum two air traffic controllers (see image below) communicating with a set of aircrafts. The TMA is the area where controlled flights approach and depart in the airspace close to the airport.
TMA controllers working collaboratively
TMA controllers working collaboratively
ATC is a collaborative work performed locally by two specialized air traffic controllers. The executive ATC interacts with pilots (usually using voice) while the planner ATC organize the work and the flow of aircrafts.
The planner controller (left-hand side) is in charge of planning clearances (orders) to be sent to pilots by the executive controller (right-hand side of figure) who uses a radar screen.
The AMAN (Arrival MANager) tool is a software planning tool suggesting to the air traffic controller an arrival sequence of aircraft and providing support in establishing the optimal aircraft approach routes. Its main aims are to assist the controller to optimize the runway capacity (sequence) and/or to regulate/manage (meter) the flow of aircraft entering the airspace, such as a TMA [1]. It helps to achieve more precisely defined flight profile and to manage traffic flows, in order to minimize the airborne delay, leading to better efficiency in terms of flights management, fuel consumption, time, and runway capacity utilization. The AMAN tool uses the flight plan data, the radar data, an aircraft performance model, known airspace/flight constraints and weather information to provide to the traffic controllers, via electronic display, two kind of information:
A Sequence List (SEQ_LIST), an arrival sequence that optimizes the efficiency of trajectories and runway throughput (see Figure below)
Delay management Advisories, for each aircraft in the ATCO’s airspace of competence.
The figure below presents the abstract view of AMAN tool that computes and presents a landing sequence that may be used by Air Traffic Controllers.
Screenshot of a subpart of an AMAN User Interface (arrival sequence)
Screenshot of a subpart of an AMAN User Interface (arrival sequence)
This is an example of concrete user interface. It could be relevant to define and represent interactions from controllers such as using drag and drop interaction technique to modify the sequencing proposed by AMAN prediction tool.
The EXC_TMA is the controller deputed to handle the communications ground/air/ground, communicating to the pilots and releasing clearances to aircrafts. He/she has the tactical responsibility of the operations and he/she executes the AMAN advisories to sequence aircraft according to the sequence list.
For the case study scenario, we propose that the pilots assume a passive role, limited to the reception and execution of the clearances. Other more active roles (such as requesting an emergency landing) can be considered but are likely to make thing significantly more complex.
Air-Traffic Controller Tasks
Air-Traffic Controller Tasks
Tasks of the EXEC_TMA air traffic controller is described below using the HAMSTERS notation [2] and [3]. The notation presented in [4] explicitly supports collaborative activities among users as well as representing motor, perceptive and cognitive tasks involved in the accomplishment of a goal. The figure below presents an abstract task model of the management of arrivals in the TMA area.
User Interface of AMAN
User Interface of AMAN
The Figure below show the Maestro user interface of AMAN (excerpt from document at the bottom of the page). We provide here several examples of UIs for AMAN. The figure below presents the MAESTRO user interface - Runway view
User Interface of Radar Screen
User Interface of Radar Screen
An example of an ATC radar screen is presented in the figure below. On that figure one can see the labels associated with each aircraft including information such as aircraft callsign, cleared flight level, ... The line ahead of the aircraft spot is called the speed vector and describes the position of the aircraft in 3 minutes time. The longer the line the faster the aircraft. That line does not take into account the change in heading if any i.e. if the aircraft is changing heading then it will not be in 3 minutes where the speed vector is indicating. Behind the spot of the aircraft, the set of dots identify the previous positions of the aircraft (usually 5 of them). The figure below presents the Air Traffic Control radar screen (each label representing an aircraft)
The image below the detail of the information presented on the radar screen for a given flight. Cleared flight level can be interactively edited by the controller.
References
[1] EUROCONTROL, Arrival Manager. Implementation GUIDELINES and Lessons Learned. Edition 0.1, 2010
[2] Célia Martinie, Philippe A. Palanque, Marco Winckler: Structuring and Composition Mechanisms to Address Scalability Issues in Task Models. INTERACT (3) 2011: 589-609
[3] Peter Forbrig, Célia Martinie, Philippe A. Palanque, Marco Winckler, Racim Fahssi: Rapid Task-Models Development Using Sub-models, Sub-routines and Generic Components. HCSE 2014: 144-163
[4] Célia Martinie, Eric Barboni, David Navarre, Philippe A. Palanque, Racim Fahssi, Erwann Poupart, Eliane Cubero-Castan: Multi-models-based engineering of collaborative systems: application to collision avoidance operations for spacecraft. ACM conference on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems EICS 2014: 85-94
Case Study Proposers
Case Study Proposers
José C. Campos is an associate professor at the Department of Informatics of Universidade do Minho and a senior researcher at HASLab/INESC TEC. His research interests lie at the intersection of Software Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction, with a particular interest in formal verification applied to interactive computing systems. José chairs IFIP Working Group 2.7/13.4 on User Interface Engineering and the steering committee of the ACM SIGCHI Symposium of Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS), and is a member of the editorial board of the ACM Proceedings on Human Computer Interaction. Besides engaging in fundamental research, he regularly cooperates with industry on applied research projects.
Philippe has been involved in the design and assessment of automation in multiple projects (mostly in safety critical systems including Air Traffic Management, Satellite ground segments and cockpits of large civil aircrafts.
Philippe Palanque is professor in Computer Science at the University Toulouse 3 and is head of the ICS (Interactive Critical Systems) research group at IRIT Lab. Since the early 90’s his research focus is on interactive systems engineering proposing notations, methods and tools to integrate multiple properties such as usability, dependability, resilience and more recently user experience. These contributions have been developed together with industrial partners from various application domains such as civil aviation, air traffic management or satellite ground segments. Recently he has been involved in the specification of future interactive cockpits and their interactions and in the modelling of operational states of civil aircraft (with direct support from and close collaboration with Airbus). The main driver of Philippe’s research over the last 20 years has been to address in an even way Usability, Safety and Dependability in order to build trustable safety critical interactive systems. He edited and co-edited more than twenty books or conference proceedings including the "Handbook on Formal Methods in Human-Computer Interaction" published by Springer in 2017.
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