Posts Tagged decision support tools

Human factors engineering consideration in the design of display devices for dismounted soldiers

Posted by Tal Oron-Gilad in Military & Law Enforcement Applications on April 6, 2015

In January 2015, the Gordon Center for Systems Engineering at the Technion conducted its Annual meeting. This year the meeting was dedicated to Human Factors and how it is relevant to system design.

During this day, lectures focused on the importance of integrating human factors into systems design. Two communities: human factors practitioners and researchers and system engineers from leading Industries in Israel had the opportunity to interact and learn. Clearly there is a need for better integration of the human factors engineering discipline in product and project development Read the rest of this entry »

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Tools and Techniques to support operators in MOMU (Multiple Operator Multiple UAV) environments

Posted by Tal Oron-Gilad in human factors engineering, Military & Law Enforcement Applications, MOMU, robotics, UAV on December 1, 2011

The ‘RICH’ (Rapid Immersion tools/techniques for Coordination and Hand-offs) research project is a US-Israel collaboration. The project aims to research, design and develop tools, techniques and procedures to aid operators in MOMU environments; to facilitate task switching and/or coordinate with other operators all for the benefit of improving overall mission performance.The Israeli partners on this task are Jacob Silbiger from Synergy Integration, Lt. Col. Michal Rottem-Hovev from the IAF, and Drs. Tal Oron-Gilad and Talya Porat from the Dept. of Industrial Engineering and Management. The US parents are Jay Shively, Lisa Fern (Human Systems Integration Group Leader, Aeroflightdynamics Directorate, US Army Research Development and Engineering Command (AMRDEC)), and Dr. Mark Draper (USAFRL). RICH is part of the US/Israel MOA (mutual operation agreement) on Rotorcraft Aeromechanics & Man/Machine Integration Technology.

Here I describe in brief the goals of the Israeli team and some of the tools developed.

Motivation: Multiple operators controlling multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (MOMU) can be an efficient operational setup for reconnaissance and surveillance missions. However, it dictates switching and coordination among operators. Efficient switching is time-critical and cognitively demanding, thus vitally affecting mission accomplishment. As such, tools and techniques (T&Ts) to facilitate switching and coordination among operators are required. Furthermore, development of metrics and test-scenarios becomes essential to evaluate, refine, and adjust T&Ts to the specifics of the operational environment.

Tools: Tools can be divided into two categories: 1) tools that facilitate ‘quick setup’, i.e., aimed to ease the way of the operator into a new mission or area of operation; and 2) tools that facilitate on-going missions where acquiring new UAVs, delegating, or switching is necessary to complete the tasks at hand. The Israeli team focused primarily on tools of the second type. Some “successful” tools have been the Castling rays (see CHI paper for detail), the TIE/coupling tool, and the Maintain coverage area.

Several outcomes of this effort have been presented and appear in the following conference proceedings.

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