ABSTRACT
Validation has received remarkably little attention in the systems development literature. In particular, there has almost been no progress in the area of human factors validation of complex system in the 20 years since the publication of Wise, Hopkin, and Stager’s (1993) seminal volume on the topic. Yet, large-scale modernization efforts of air transportation infrastructure in the U.S. (NextGen) and elsewhere should by all reason have proved to be a boon to research on validation and verification methods. Alas, this appears not to be the case. This session in the 4th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics and the 1st International Conference on Human Factors in Transportation was put together to refocus the attention on verification and validation of NextGen technologies and procedures. The five papers in the session address diverse questions about validation of different components of NextGen. Mosier, Fischer, and Orasanu review the particular challenges of human interaction with highly automated systems. Gore, Hooey, Mahlstedt, and Foyle describe a computational model to investigate pilots’ performance in self-separation and closely spaced parallel operations using associated NextGen technologies. Hall, Underhill, Rodriquez, and DeLaura describe validation of a departure route planning tool. Histon, Rantanen, and Alm review past research on aviation communications and offer guidelines for the use of communications analysis in validation of many aspects-also beyond datalink communications-of NextGen. Finally, Archer, Liu, and Wise review the issue of de-conflict algorithms and their role in NextGen. This paper will summarize the contributions of these authors and offer an integrated review of the state of human factors validation and verification of complex systems in the context of NextGen.
