Assistant Based Speech Recognition Support for Air Traffic Controllers in a Multiple Remote Tower Environment
Oliver Ohneiser,
Hartmut Helmke,
Shruthi Shetty,
Matthias Kleinert,
Heiko Ehr,
Sebastian Schier-Morgenthal,
Saeed Sarfjoo,
Petr Motlicek,
Šarūnas Murauskas,
Tomas Pagirys,
Haris Usanovic,
Mirta Meštrović,
Aneta Černá
Affiliations
Oliver Ohneiser
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Hartmut Helmke
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Shruthi Shetty
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Matthias Kleinert
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Heiko Ehr
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Sebastian Schier-Morgenthal
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Flight Guidance, Lilienthalplatz 7, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany
Saeed Sarfjoo
Idiap Research Institute, Centre du Parc, Rue Marconi 19, 1920 Martigny, Switzerland
Petr Motlicek
Idiap Research Institute, Centre du Parc, Rue Marconi 19, 1920 Martigny, Switzerland
Šarūnas Murauskas
AB “Oro Navigacija” (ON), Air Navigation Service Provider of Lithuania, Balio Karvelio St. 25, 02184 Vilnius, Lithuania
Tomas Pagirys
AB “Oro Navigacija” (ON), Air Navigation Service Provider of Lithuania, Balio Karvelio St. 25, 02184 Vilnius, Lithuania
Haris Usanovic
Austro Control (ACG), Österreichische Gesellschaft für Zivilluftfahrt mbH, Air Navigation Service Provider of Austria, Schnirchgasse 17, 1030 Vienna, Austria
Mirta Meštrović
Croatia Control (CroControl), Air Navigation Service Provider of Croatia, Rudolfa Fizira 2, 10410 Velika Gorica, Croatia
Aneta Černá
Air Navigation Services of the Czech Republic (ANS CR), Navigační 787, 25261 Jeneč u Prahy, Czech Republic
Assistant Based Speech Recognition (ABSR) systems for air traffic control radiotelephony communication have shown their potential to reduce air traffic controllers’ (ATCos) workload. Related research activities mainly focused on utterances for approach and en-route traffic. This is one of the first investigations of how ABSR could support ATCos in a tower environment. Ten ATCos from Lithuania and Austria participated in a human-in-the-loop simulation to validate ABSR support within a prototypic multiple remote tower controller working position. The ABSR supports ATCos by (1) highlighting recognized callsigns, (2) inputting recognized commands from ATCo utterances in electronic flight strips, (3) offering correction of ABSR output, (4) automatically accepting ABSR output, and (5) feeding the digital air traffic control system. This paper assesses human factors such as workload, situation awareness, and usability when ATCos are supported by ABSR. Those assessments result from a system with a relevant command recognition rate of 82.9% and a callsign recognition rate of 94.2%. Workload reductions and usability improvement with p-values below 0.25 are obtained for the case when the ABSR system is compared to the baseline situation without ABSR support. This motivates the technology to be brought to a higher technology readiness level, which is also confirmed by subjective feedback from questionnaires and objective measurement of workload reduction based on a performed secondary task.
