FAA announces new centre of excellence

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta today announced that the agency has selected the University of Oklahoma and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University teams to lead the new Air Transportation Centre of Excellence for Technical Training and Human Performance (COE TTHP).

The COE will conduct research and development on technical training for air traffic controllers, aviation safety inspectors, engineers, pilots and technicians.

“This world-class, public-private partnership will help us focus on the challenges and opportunities of this cutting-edge field of research,” Administrator Huerta said. “We expect this team will help us educate and train aviation professionals well into the future.”

The academic team members all have nationally-recognised collegiate aviation-related education programs and core members also own and operate their own aircraft and airports. A partnership of principal investigators from the different universities will perform the research projects. The universities will engage senior faculty as well as graduate-level and undergraduate students in their research activities.

The FAA expects the COE will be fully operational and engaged in a robust research agenda within the next few months.

The FAA will take advantage of advancements in teaching, such as part-task training, modelling, immersive human-in-the-loop simulation, and adaptive learning technologies that are standard in other technical areas.

The COE will examine human factors issues such as changes in learner expectations and academic best practices for training a new generation of learners. The centre also will research innovative training methods for this new generation. This includes new technologies such as mobile learning as well as new ways of collecting and managing training data.

The FAA’s Centre of Excellence program is a long-term, cost-sharing partnership between academia, industry and government. Congress authorised Air Transportation Centres of Excellence under the Federal Aviation Administration Research, Engineering and Development Authorization Act of 1990.

This legislation enables the FAA to work with centre members and affiliates to conduct research in airspace and airport planning and design, environment and aviation safety, as well as to engage in other activities to assure a safe and efficient air transportation system.

The FAA has established 12 Centres of Excellence in critical topic areas focusing on: unmanned aircraft systems, alternative jet fuels and environment, general aviation safety, commercial space transportation, airliner cabin environment, aircraft noise and aviation emissions mitigation, advanced materials, general aviation research, airworthiness assurance, operations research, airport pavement and technology, and computational modelling of aircraft structures.