Framework for Multimodal Cognitive Load Analysis in Safety-Critical Systems: An ATC Simulation Case Study

Controlled studies in safety-critical domains such as Air Traffic Control (ATC) are inherently difficult, making high-fidelity simulators essential for research. However, existing simulation environments are often complex and expensive facilities that are only available at selected locations (e.g. flight simulators) or lack necessary realism, limiting their use in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. This paper presents a framework that addresses this gap, demonstrating how a more realistic, sensor-enhanced simulation environment can be developed in a comparatively low-cost manner. Following the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, we integrated the open-source BlueSky ATC engine with a custom frontend and multiple sensor modalities (e.g., eye-tracking, PPG, respiration). Our preliminary evaluation in a landing scenario case study confirms the framework’s effectiveness in capturing rich physiological and behavioral data corresponding to cognitive load. We present the system architecture, assess the DSR process, and release the framework as an open source tool to foster further research.