Control–Flight Conflict Interdependent Network Based Controllers’ Workload Prediction Evaluation Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1.      The article proposes a novel interdependent network model approach by combining the control network and the flight conflict network, and on this basis analyzes and studies network indicators to make a reasonable assessment and forecast of the controller's workload. The aim of the study is very  clearly formulated in the Abstract section.

2. Good literature review. A few remarks:

a. No date of publication in reference no. 5.

b. Standardize the way of writing the literature (in some items of the surname the capital letters were written, in others - not).

3. Some simplifications have been adopted in the model, which are discussed in detail in Section 2. Interdependent Network Construction. Accordingly, the questions are:

a. Are these not too far-reaching simplifications that in practice will make it impossible to use the proposed model? b. The Discussion section states that this method will approve timeless problem of current applied model. But how does this relate to the simplifying assumptions on page 3, lines 131-137. Will the adopted simplifications limit the practical application of the proposed method?

c. Do the authors have any inspiration for future research on this topic?

4. The drawings included in the article help to understand the essence of the problem. Some detailed notes below:

a. Fig. 3. What do the symbols VA, VB and V mean?

b. Fig. 6. The edges of E12 would have to be clearer in the drawing (dashed line).

c. Fig. 11 and May 12 have the same description; should it be like that?

5. Tab 1. should be on one side.

6. Two sentences on lines 413-414 - shouldn't they be one sentence?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Dear reviewers: Thank you very much for your comments. We have made great efforts to revise according to your comments. We hope that we can get your approval. The detailed response is attached. Thank you again.
Sincerely, Author

Sincerely, Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Check with the Reference number mentioned in the context. It is found to be mismatched.

2. Quality of Figures/ Images can be improved.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Dear reviewers: Thank you very much for your comments. We have made great efforts to revise according to your comments. We hope that we can get your approval. The detailed response is attached. Thank you again.
Sincerely, Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper describes a novel method of evaluating controller workload only using the aircraft state. In general the paper is well constructed.   However two major items need to be resolved. 1. Error in Eq. 9, which is critical to this paper needs to be corrected. 2. More explanation is needed how to apply this method to real sectors that are not square.   Below are the specific questions.   Q0) Line 233: Is there any special meaning of 'right' from "edge right of..."? This sentence is difficult to understand.
Q1) Lines 290 ~ 294: It is unclear why the degree values of 1-180 nodes are small.


Q2) Lines 348 ~ 351:
Looming effect, situation controllability index,  and inter aircraft complexity are defined in Equations 7, 8, and  9 as P, I, (?) but  they were not used in the following equations. (See Q4)  
Q3) Line 357: Is this L0 different from the L0 of Eq. 1? If they are different, it is unclear why the flight protection zone is not applied.(Upper case P(i, j) and lower case p(i, j) are mixed to denote the looming effect.)


Q4) Lines 370 ~ 371: Equation 9 is identical to Eq. 7. Also, Eq. 9 does not match the description.

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Dear reviewers: Thank you very much for your comments. We have made great efforts to revise according to your comments. We hope that we can get your approval. The detailed response is attached. Thank you again.
Sincerely, Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

In this manuscript, the authors have studied workload prediction of the flight controllers. Motivation of the study is well written and question itself is interesting. In literature review, the authors have presented several ways to study workload, some of them are interesting. However, in this manuscript, I could not find novel ideas or insights that supports publishing of this in the journal. Method proposed is quite simple, with random generated Matlab code example. Analysis and validation is partly interesting, but more precise and wide comparison between presented methods would be valuable to the text. In overall, this manuscript is report of interesting problem with quite simple implementation. I would like to reject this manuscript, but I will give the authors possibility to really explain the novelty of their work very clearly in the text, so I recommend, at this point, major revision. 

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Dear reviewers: Thank you very much for your comments. We have made great efforts to revise according to your comments. We hope that we can get your approval. The detailed response is attached. Thank you again.
Sincerely, Author

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

All the comments were addressed.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments. We have improved the grammatical issues in the article.