Evolution of an integrated Aircraft Alerting and Notification system for Conditions Outside the Aircraft

This paper discusses the evolution of the Alerting and Notification of Conditions Outside the Aircraft (ANCOA) concept, based on an integrated alerting framework. The development of ANCOA was prompted by the alert proliferation and the lack of alert standardization as independent alerting systems for conditions outside the aircraft (e.g. TCAS, EGPWS) are introduced onto the flight deck. These separate alerting systems, each using different alerting and display philosophies to present information to the crew, have no integrated standard protocol for prioritizing and organizing the information to reduce the demands on pilot attention and information processing. In response, a framework that integrated, organized, prioritized, and displayed information from new flight deck alerting systems was developed. ANCOA exemplifies the framework by integrating information from independent alerting systems to enable multiple alerts to be prioritized and de-conflicted, in order to support prompt and appropriate responses to adverse conditions based on good situation awareness.