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Campus
studies air traffic with grant
By
Stacey Schwed
Daily Forty-Niner
The
Boeing Company will be assisting the Cal
State Long Beach psychology department with
donations in establishing a center to study
the human factor issues in air traffic management.
Advanced
Air Vehicle/Air Traffic Management Simulation
Research Center (AAV/ATM SRC) at CSULB was
made possible by Boeing's Southern California
Air Force systems and Huntington Beach Site
Organization.
Boeing
has supported the AAV/ATM SRC with some
$200,000 in donations and contracts. Among
the equipment and gifts from Boeing, the
CSULB psychology department has also received
23 high-end computer workstations, $31,000
in start-up costs and a $48,000 grant for
initial simulation projects.
AAV/ATM
SRC is also receiving specially designed
simulation software from the NASA Ames Research
Center valued at several million dollars.
The
psychology department is creating this station
to answer some questions such as, whether
pilots could depend on less air traffic
control for in-flight directions or if controllers
handled unpiloted planes.
"We
will be doing unpiloted air vehicle and
airspace simulations on the second floor
of the psychology building," said Tom
Strybel, CSULB psychology professor and
director of the AAV/ATM SRC Center. Strybel
is setting the department's new masters
degree program in human factors.
The
reason the center is in the psychology department
and not in the College of Engineering is
the importance of human factor issues in
air traffic management.
According
to Strybel the AAV/ATM SRC team will also
participate in joint air traffic management
simulations with Boeing and the NASA Ames
Research Center. Students will play a large
role in these simulations and other projects.
The
psychology students will be assisting in
the operations by learning to perform pilot
and air traffic controller tasks. They also
will become familiar with human issues.
The masters program will allow students
to use the center for research and thesis
projects.
"Pilots
could use that new information to make decisions
that only air traffic controllers can make
today, such as a change in flight path or
altitude," Strybel said.
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