Hydroponic Crop Cultivation (HCC) for Food Security in Small Island Developing States; The Human Factors Related to the Development and Incorporation of Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) in Commercial Aircraft

Aircraft safety is the most important aspect of commercial air travel. Aircraft communication, navigation, and situational awareness systems are under constant change to improve their current states in order to ensure their passengers can travel safely. Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance Systems (TCAS) are put in place to operate when all other avenues of maintaining mid-air separation are exhausted and have failed, in order to ensure that aircraft will safely avoid each other. TCAS issues a Resolution Advisory (RA) when two aircraft are on collision paths, which consists of a sounded alarm and a voice recommendation to climb or descend and a corresponding image on the system’s display. Pilots rely on a number of different resources to safely operate their aircraft, and some may consider TCAS to be the most important in gaining an understanding of the airspace around them. When it comes to the social and human dimensions of TCAS, it is important to consider its changes and development with careful examination. Pilots are trained to immediately obey the RA when received from TCAS without hesitation, which is essentially removing the human decision maker from the situation. Further implications will lead to ever increasing autonomous flight, and transportation in general.
This issue can be analyzed using the technological momentum theory, in which the relationship between human and technology is reciprocal and time-dependent so that one does not determine the changes in the other, but both influence each other. Interviews and technical research will be conducted in order to gain information on the manner in which TCAS is used, and how the system operates. Case studies will be analyzed to gain a perspective on how the human and technical dimensions of TCAS coincide, and to generate ideas on possible improvements or resolutions. Changing the slightest aspect of a social or technical dimension of TCAS can have significant effect on the other, and change air travel along with all types of human travel.

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Bachelor of Science in Systems Engineering
Technical Advisor: Bevin Etienne, Manuel Lerdau, Garrick Louis,
STS Advisor: Rider Foley
Technical Team Members: Shayne Cassidy, Matthew Coulter, Thomas Finkelston, Klara Hoherchak, Antonio Vaz Raposo Mendes de Almeida, Griffin Ott, Colin Patton, Kaila Stein