Onboard pilot decision aid for high volume operations in self-controlled airspace

Distributed pilot decision-making plays a critical part in high volume operation in non-controlled/non-radar airports, a concept proposed by the NASA Small Aircraft Transportation System program. Realization of the concept relies on advanced cockpit systems that assist pilots in both information-processing and decision-making. In this paper, we presented the design of an onboard pilot decision aid system, called the Small Aircraft Pilot Assistant, which is dedicated to help pilots perform the high volume operation flight tasks. It increases the cockpit decision-making capacity and pilot situation awareness by automating part of the pilot decision-making process, especially in its early stages of information acquisition and analysis. The pilot tests of the system are conducted using a real-time, multi-aircraft, pilot-in-the-loop simulation system that is presently capable of middle-fidelity HVO simulation.