Augmented Reality Safety Net in Aerodrome Control Tower

In my previous bachelor's thesis I studied an algorithm for the improvement of runway efficiency in normal condition: minimizing the occupation of the runway means serving the greatest number of aircraft with the least possible delay. But other important limitations of airports are the ones in force during low visibility when the number of movements allowed undergoes a relevant reduction. A solution could be the use of technology to support air traffic controllers and pilots to re-establish a good level of situational awareness in order to reduce the limitations in force. In Europe, the technological pillar of the ambitious Single European Sky initiative is the Single European Sky ATM Research project (SESAR). Inside the SESAR project, the RETINA concept is regarding the introduction of augmented reality in aerodrome control tower for the improvement of efficiency and capacity of airports. Within the RETINA concept this thesis aims to study the implementation of new safety nets for aerodrome control tower with the support of augmented reality. This study starts from introduction to air traffic services in order to focus on SESAR project and RETINA concept. Then, concept and graphical solution for Conflicting ATC Clearances Safety Net (CATC) are proposed. Due to Covid-19 pandemic in progress during the thesis work, the implementation and validation activities could not be carried out in RETINA simulator of the University of Bologna labs, so different stand-alone implementation in Unity and validation by questionnaire administered to air traffic controllers are used. This thesis work can be considered as the first iteration in the User-Centered Design process for CATC. After the analysis of the feedback, new iteration in which the design is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation could be setup.