Stress Assessment by Combining Neurophysiological Signals and Radio Communications of Air Traffic Controllers

Gianluca Borghini (1) , Andrea Bandini (2) , Silvia Orlandi (3) , Gianluca Di Flumeri (1) , Pietro Aricò (1) , Nicolina Sciaraffa (1) , Vincenzo Ronca (4) , Stefano Bonelli (5) , Martina Ragosta (5) , Paola Tomasello , Ugur Turhan , Birsen Acikel (6) , Ali Ozan (7) , Jean-Paul Imbert (8) , Raïlane Benhacene (8) , Fabrice Drogoul (9) , Fabio Babiloni (10)

1 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
2 UNIBO - Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna = University of Bologna
3 UniFI - Università degli Studi di Firenze = University of Florence = Université de Florence
4 Sapienza University of Rome - Department of Informatics and System Sciences
5 DeepBlue
6 Kastamonu University
7 Eskişehir Technical University
8 ENAC - Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile
9 EUROCONTROL
10 Department of Physiology and Pharmacology [Rome]

Air Traffic Control (ATC) has been classified as the fourth most stressful job. In this regard, sixteen controllers were asked to perform ecological ATC simulation during which behavioral (Radio Communications with pilots - RCs), subjective (stress perception) and neurophysiological signals (brain activity and skin conductance - SC) were collected. All the considered parameters reported significant changes under high stress conditions. In particular, the theta, alpha, and beta brain rhythms increased significantly (all p<0.05) all over the brain areas, and both the SC components exhibited higher values (p<0.01). Additionally, the number of speech under high stress decreased significantly (p<10 -4 ) while both the mean and median value of the F0 component of the RC increased (p<0.01). The results can be employed to objectively measure and track the controller’s stress level while dealing with ATC activities to better tailoring the workshift and maintaining high safety levels.

Mots clés: Stress; Electroencephalography; Brain; Electronic mail; Feature extraction; Radio communication; Skin

Domaines: Neurosciences; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Gianluca Borghini, Andrea Bandini, Silvia Orlandi, Gianluca Di Flumeri, Pietro Aricò, et al.. Stress Assessment by Combining Neurophysiological Signals and Radio Communications of Air Traffic Controllers. EMBC 2020, 42nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology, Jul 2020, Montreal, Canada. pp.851-854, ⟨10.1109/EMBC44109.2020.9175958⟩. ⟨hal-02926870⟩