Human Factors and Safety Implications on Air Traffic Controllers and Remote Pilots for the RPAS Introduction in Controlled Airspace

Nowadays Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs) represent the new frontier of air vehicle for both transportation of people and goods. The Air Traffic Management (ATM) is a complex socio-technical system relying on cooperation and coordination among human actors and distributed architectures, where all pieces shall fit together to ensure safety performances and smoothness of traffic flows. The introduction of RPASs in controlled airspaces increases the complexity of ATM system and needs to be properly evaluated from a safety and Human Factors (HF) point of view. This article discusses the approach and presents the results of Safety and HF evaluations on the RPASs integration conducted within the INVIRCAT European research project. Several safety and HF validation objectives were identified within the project and assessed through Real Time Simulation (RTS) campaigns executed in Germany, Netherland and Italy addressing different Use Cases, this article presents the INVIRCAT experimental activities conducted in Italy focusing on nominal, contingency and Automatic Take-off and Landing (ATOL) procedures.