Uses of Interactive Data Visualization in Air Traffic Control Systems

Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems are complex systems responsible for maintaining safe air traffic within a designated airspace. They are essential for the safe flow of commercial flights in and out of places which can significantly reduce aerial accidents. In recent years, ATC systems have seen concerning problems in large-scale data management and inefficiencies in decision making which can lead to human error. To resolve these issues, the use of Interactive Data Visualization (IDV), a powerful method of presenting complex datasets in an engaging and comprehensible manner instead of using boring charts, can be employed. There have been prior attempts to use IDV methods in various ATC systems. Although these attempts of specializing IDV in aviation have made major contributions, most of these other proposals lack conclusions and essential aspects such as specific environmental factors of the specified airspace, the operating systems of specific airports, in addition with specialized utilization of IDV in different kinds of airspaces. In this paper, a systematic review of previous works will be conducted, the proposal of new ways for utilizing IDV in ATC systems will be discussed, and previous factors that were not considered before will be analyzed. The paper will start off by discussing the ATC systems we have today, their problems, the potential usage of IDV in ATC systems, how it would work, general proposals of potential utilization methods, the advantages and disadvantages of IDV in ATC systems, and future outlooks. The paper will provide a general overview and directions for the future of ATC systems utilizing IDV.