ABSTRACT
Air transportation is essential for society and it is increasing gradually. Furthermore, new technologies that improve the airspace operation in terms of safety are under development, such as the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). In the past few years, there has been a growth in UAS numbers into the segregated airspace. However, there are many challenges to be faced in order to integrate these autonomous aircraft into the non-segregated airspace. In this context, the relationship between UAS and Air Traffic Controller (ATCo) is a important aspect due to the fact that the presence of UAS into the nonsegregated airspace may represent an increase in ATCo workload and, ultimately, a reduction in safety levels. This increase results from the lack of familiarity of the ATCo with the UAS, which leads these professionals to perform additional activities (e.g. cognitive activities) in order to conduct the air traffic safely. In fact, the Technology Maturity Level (TML), which is a measurement system that models the level of familiarity of ATCo with a particular aircraft, shows the impacts on workload levels of different aircraft. The main goal of this research is to propose a flow-management method for balancing the workload of sectors in order to reduce the impact on safety levels of the UAS presence in the non-segregated airspace. This workload balancing method considers the TML of Manned Aircraft (MA) and UAS, which may increase (in case of UAS) or decrease (in case of MA) the ATCo workload. The results show that this method can be employed for balancing workload effectively, even considering the UAS presence, and that integrating a small number of UAS into non-segregated airspace may present acceptable safety levels from the ATCo workload perspective.
