Coordinated by:
Research Questions
1
NLR
Consortium members:
VU University Amsterdam, Unversity of l’Aquila
Can mathematical modelling bring benefits to resilience engineering in ATM?
Research Scope
Resilience in ATM is the ability of the ATM system to adjust its functioning prior to, during, or following changes and disturbances, so that it can sustain required operations under both expected and unexpected conditions. Resilience is key for the sociotechnical ATM system, where interacting human operators and technical systems must control air traffic safely and efficiently in the context of uncertainty and disturbances (e.g. delays, weather, system malfunctioning). Resilience engineering stresses the key role of human operators to flexibly adjust to varying demands and conditions in the sociotechnical ATM system. It is the objective of the MAREA project to develop a mathematical modelling and analysis approach towards the application of resilience engineering in ATM. The project enhances the set of psychological and organizational models currently used in safety analysis and resilience engineering by developing a systematic inventory of new types of model constructs in agent-based modelling, which can be used to describe a wide variety of uncertainties and non-nominal behaviour in ATM.
Research Results
The MAREA project used a database of hazards for the development of a library of model constructs. By an analysis of the NLR ATM Hazard Database, 525 generalized hazards were identified, which describe a broad variety of conditions, events and circumstances of human operators, technical systems, environmental conditions, and their interactions in ATM. By a systematic inventory on the basis of these generalized hazards, the MAREA project identified a set of 38 model constructs. These include 13 model constructs previously used in ATM safety assessments by multiagent dynamic risk modelling, such as multi-agent situation awareness, dynamic variability, and system mode. The 25 additional model constructs include a variety of human, environmental and organisation related model constructs, e.g. operator functional state, trust, situation awareness with complex beliefs, bad weather, and formal organisation. It was shown that by the library of model constructs more than 98% of the set of generalized hazards could be well or partly modelled. Thus almost all hazards can be represented in agent-based modelling and simulation of air traffic scenarios and the emergent effects of the interactions between the model constructs can be analysed effectively. Such agent-based modelling and simulation has considerable advantages over traditional probabilistic risk assessment and human reliability assessment approaches.
Research Results
2
The MAREA project showed that a mathematical approach towards resilience engineering provides novel methods for prospective analysis of safety implications of resilience in ATM, which are complementary to already on-going resilience engineering developments. The library of model constructs supports agent-based modelling and simulation of complex relations in the ATM sociotechnical system, as a way towards understanding and improving its ability to adjust to disturbances and sustaining safe operations.