On the correlations between air traffic and controller ' s eye movements

Air traffic controllers always play an important role in the air transportation system. However, the understanding of the interaction between controllers’ cognitive activities and complex traffic activities are less addressed. Many kinds of metrics have been summarized to analyze complex traffic situations. Eye movements are considered to be related to cognitive activities. This paper aims to investigate quantitative correlations between air traffic controller's eye movement activities and traffic activities. Eye-tracking data and flight radar tracks are recorded during real-time simulations. Commonly used eye movement and traffic measures are calculated. Linear or nonlinear correlations between traffic measures and visual measures are profoundly examined based on time series analysis techniques. We assume that there are three types of cognitive activities during the control process, i.e. targets tracking, conflict recognition, and attention allocation. Various combinations between eye movements and traffic activities are identified correspond to the different cognitive behaviors. Keywords-air traffic management; eye movements; correlations

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