HMI undergraduate thesis

Redesign of the experimental flight instrument Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI)
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My undergraduate thesis was a redesign of the most important HMI problems of a flight instrument (Cockpit Display of Traffic Information, CDTI) used in the “Mediterranean Free Flight” project, a European Air Traffic Control investigation led by ENAV (Italian ATC agency). The MFF aimed to operate flights on free, arbitrary routes by airborne autonomus separation (ASAS) from other aircraft. Some procedures, previously under Air Traffic controllers responsability were assigned to pilots.

ACTIVITY ANALYSIS
During my internship at DeepBlue, a consultancy working for ENAV, I conducted observations in real time flight simulations, I analyzed questionnaires filled by pilots after any trial, and I participated in briefings with various experts (Human Factors, Air Traffic controllers, pilots). My internship coincided with the ASAS A3 Spacing procedure tests. In the specific A3 Spacing procedures pilots had to maintain given distances from their ‘own ship’ and another defined aircraft (’target‘), for a fixed amount of time. In the user and activity analysis I also used different usability inspection methods: Cognitive Walkthrough, Nielsen heuristics and the more specific (for Air Traffic Control) Cardosi heuristics. The redesign was conducted on the use of the instrument during A3 Spacing procedures.

PROTOTYPE
I made a low fidelity scenario-based prototype investigating the Look and Feel of the interface. I changed the grey highlight on green texts with a simple white box surrounding them; in the air traffic window, I removed redunding secondary information that created confusion while I repeated, on both sides of the window, critical data that was easily covered with intense air traffic. I redesigned the logical order of some axial indicators on the selection bar and I proposed coherent terminology for equal commands in the various menus; I redesigned a counter to improve a very complicated selection of a three-digit value; I indicated a more visible alert message in case of procedure failure. The prototype was evaluated with the Human Factors team and a domain expert, giving further proposals for improvements.

Download here the abstract, index and sources of my thesis report [PDF | 84KB]

Materials concerning the M.F.F. CDTI are under restrictions.