Beyond the Screen: Reshaping the Workplace with Virtual and Augmented Reality

Although extended reality technologies have enjoyed an explosion in popularity in recent years, few applications are effectively used outside the entertainment or academic contexts. This work consists of a literature review regarding the effective integration of such technologies in the workplace. It aims to provide an updated view of how they are being used in that context. First, we examine existing research concerning virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality applications. We also analyze which have made their way to the workflows of companies and institutions. Furthermore, we circumscribe the aspects of extended reality technologies that determined this applicability

Technical Workshop: Advanced Helicopter Cockpit Design

Information processing demands on both civilian and military aircrews have increased enormously as rotorcraft have come to be used for adverse weather, day/night, and remote area missions. Applied psychology, engineering, or operational research for future helicopter cockpit design criteria were identified. Three areas were addressed: (1) operational requirements, (2) advanced avionics, and (3) man-system integration

Multimodal feedback for mid-air gestures when driving

Mid-air gestures in cars are being used by an increasing number of drivers on the road. Us-ability concerns mean good feedback is important, but a balance needs to be found between supporting interaction and reducing distraction in an already demanding environment. Visual feedback is most commonly used, but takes visual attention away from driving. This thesis investigates novel non-visual alternatives to support the driver during mid-air gesture interaction: Cutaneous Push, Peripheral Lights, and Ultrasound feedback. These modalities lack the expressive capabilities of high resolution screens, but are intended to allow drivers to focus on the driving task. A new form of haptic feedback — Cutaneous Push — was defined. Six solenoids were embedded along the rim of the steering wheel, creating three bumps under each palm. Studies 1, 2, and 3 investigated the efficacy of novel static and dynamic Cutaneous Push patterns, and their impact on driving performance. In simulated driving studies, the cutaneous patterns were tested. The results showed pattern identification rates of up to 81.3% for static patterns and 73.5% for dynamic patterns and 100% recognition of directional cues. Cutaneous Push notifications did not impact driving behaviour nor workload and showed very high user acceptance. Cutaneous Push patterns have the potential to make driving safer by providing non-visual and instantaneous messages, for example to indicate an approaching cyclist or obstacle. Studies 4 & 5 looked at novel uni- and bimodal feedback combinations of Visual, Auditory, Cutaneous Push, and Peripheral Lights for mid-air gestures and found that non-visual feedback modalities, especially when combined bimodally, offered just as much support for interaction without negatively affecting driving performance, visual attention and cognitive demand. These results provide compelling support for using non-visual feedback from in-car systems, supporting input whilst letting drivers focus on driving.Studies 6 & 7 investigated the above bimodal combinations as well as uni- and bimodal Ultrasound feedback during the Lane Change Task to assess the impact of gesturing and feedback modality on car control during more challenging driving. The results of study Seven suggests that Visual and Ultrasound feedback are not appropriate for in-car usage,unless combined multimodally. If Ultrasound is used unimodally it is more useful in a binary scenario.Findings from Studies 5, 6, and 7 suggest that multimodal feedback significantly reduces eyes-off-the-road time compared to Visual feedback without compromising driving performance or perceived user workload, thus it can potentially reduce crash risks. Novel design recommendations for providing feedback during mid-air gesture interaction in cars are provided, informed by the experiment findings

Look Here! Measuring the Attentional Demand of Near-Future Full Windshield Vehicle Displays

Driving a road vehicle is a task which requires and demands visual attention. Despite this, information on a vehicle’s state, the road environment, or the entertainment features have commonly been conveyed to the driver via visual means because the information can quickly be received and responded to as desired by the driver. Current vehicle displays commonly consist of digital displays presented in the centre console (between the two front seats, under the windshield), and at the instrument cluster (above the steering wheel). Such displays are sometimes referred to as Head-down Displays (HDDs) as they encourage the driver to look down and within the vehicle. The attentional demand and corresponding distraction arising from HDDs is a longstanding component of research largely due to safety concerns. Conducting secondary tasks with such displays (where the driver performs a task in addition to primary task of driving e.g., changing the vehicle’s climate controls) is associated with degraded driving performance and therefore an increased crash risk. More recent developments in display technology have led to the inclusion of Head-up Displays (HUDs) within vehicles. These displays present imagery in a translucent form over the road environment typically by reflecting or projecting graphics onto the windshield or another treated glass component. Since they position information closer to the drivers’ view of the road environment, they are considered to encourage more beneficial attentive behaviours than HDDs, by ensuring the driver is looking up and out of the vehicle towards the road ahead. HUDs within road vehicles are expected to expand in size so that information can be presented across the whole windshield; these are commonly referred to as a full Windshield Displays (WSDs). Presently, the types of tasks that have been investigated on these displays have been limited. Equally, the attentional demand of these novel displays needs to be ascertained, as well as how this varies when imagery has the potential to be located across the whole windshield. Consequently, this thesis aimed to: establish the demand of near-future ecologically valid tasks on windshield displays, develop approaches to investigate visual demand, and ascertain how this demand varies when imagery is presented across expansive windshield locations. A series of four driving simulator-based studies were conducted to address these aims. The first study examined twenty-six participants using an after-market HUD device at the Virginia Tech Cogent Lab. Participants completed tasks on the display which contained components likely to be within the interfaces of near-future HUDs or WSDs (text reading and menu navigation). The analysis showed interactions between task type and the task complexity significantly impacted driver eye-movement and specific longitudinal measures of driving performance. Thus, the exact attributes of the tasks presented on a HUD appear to influence the display’s attentional demand. The second study used two after-market HUD devices to simulate display imagery appearing across the windshield. Twenty-six participants were recruited, and a visually demanding task was used to begin to assess visual demand across windshield displays. The measures showed that increasing display eccentricity resulted in poorer driving performance, thereby indicating greater demand. The third study recruited sixty participants to expansively investigate the impact of display imagery presented in fifty-one display locations. The WSD was simulated using projection. An innovative approach was developed to establish how long a driver could make a continuous glance to these locations before unsafe driving occurred. Graphical depictions of these time thresholds were produced for several dependent measures; they illustrate the visual demand implications of displays across the windshield area. The final study recruited eighteen participants to compare three display locations (two windshield displays and a HDD). Two display tasks were used to establish how drivers manage their engagement with these displays. The observed interactions indicated that drivers were more enticed to attend to the windshield displays than the HDD. Overall, this thesis demonstrates novel approaches to assessing visual demand across display positions. It concludes that windshield display demand is dependent on display location eccentricity and the nature of the task being displayed. The outcome of this demand depends on how drivers respond to these features. Finally, future work and the future of vehicle displays is discussed

Look Here! Measuring the Attentional Demand of Near-Future Full Windshield Vehicle Displays

Driving a road vehicle is a task which requires and demands visual attention. Despite this, information on a vehicle’s state, the road environment, or the entertainment features have commonly been conveyed to the driver via visual means because the information can quickly be received and responded to as desired by the driver. Current vehicle displays commonly consist of digital displays presented in the centre console (between the two front seats, under the windshield), and at the instrument cluster (above the steering wheel). Such displays are sometimes referred to as Head-down Displays (HDDs) as they encourage the driver to look down and within the vehicle. The attentional demand and corresponding distraction arising from HDDs is a longstanding component of research largely due to safety concerns. Conducting secondary tasks with such displays (where the driver performs a task in addition to primary task of driving e.g., changing the vehicle’s climate controls) is associated with degraded driving performance and therefore an increased crash risk. More recent developments in display technology have led to the inclusion of Head-up Displays (HUDs) within vehicles. These displays present imagery in a translucent form over the road environment typically by reflecting or projecting graphics onto the windshield or another treated glass component. Since they position information closer to the drivers’ view of the road environment, they are considered to encourage more beneficial attentive behaviours than HDDs, by ensuring the driver is looking up and out of the vehicle towards the road ahead. HUDs within road vehicles are expected to expand in size so that information can be presented across the whole windshield; these are commonly referred to as a full Windshield Displays (WSDs). Presently, the types of tasks that have been investigated on these displays have been limited. Equally, the attentional demand of these novel displays needs to be ascertained, as well as how this varies when imagery has the potential to be located across the whole windshield. Consequently, this thesis aimed to: establish the demand of near-future ecologically valid tasks on windshield displays, develop approaches to investigate visual demand, and ascertain how this demand varies when imagery is presented across expansive windshield locations. A series of four driving simulator-based studies were conducted to address these aims. The first study examined twenty-six participants using an after-market HUD device at the Virginia Tech Cogent Lab. Participants completed tasks on the display which contained components likely to be within the interfaces of near-future HUDs or WSDs (text reading and menu navigation). The analysis showed interactions between task type and the task complexity significantly impacted driver eye-movement and specific longitudinal measures of driving performance. Thus, the exact attributes of the tasks presented on a HUD appear to influence the display’s attentional demand. The second study used two after-market HUD devices to simulate display imagery appearing across the windshield. Twenty-six participants were recruited, and a visually demanding task was used to begin to assess visual demand across windshield displays. The measures showed that increasing display eccentricity resulted in poorer driving performance, thereby indicating greater demand. The third study recruited sixty participants to expansively investigate the impact of display imagery presented in fifty-one display locations. The WSD was simulated using projection. An innovative approach was developed to establish how long a driver could make a continuous glance to these locations before unsafe driving occurred. Graphical depictions of these time thresholds were produced for several dependent measures; they illustrate the visual demand implications of displays across the windshield area. The final study recruited eighteen participants to compare three display locations (two windshield displays and a HDD). Two display tasks were used to establish how drivers manage their engagement with these displays. The observed interactions indicated that drivers were more enticed to attend to the windshield displays than the HDD. Overall, this thesis demonstrates novel approaches to assessing visual demand across display positions. It concludes that windshield display demand is dependent on display location eccentricity and the nature of the task being displayed. The outcome of this demand depends on how drivers respond to these features. Finally, future work and the future of vehicle displays is discussed

Towards the aircraft of the future: a perspective from Consciousness

This paper envisions the possibility of a Conscious Aircraft: an aircraft of the future with features of consciousness. To serve this purpose, three main fields are examined: philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). While philosophy deals with the concept of what is consciousness, cognitive neuroscience studies the relationship of the brain with consciousness, contributing toward the biomimicry of consciousness in an aircraft. The field of AI leads into machine consciousness. The paper discusses several theories from these fields and derives outcomes suitable for the development of a Conscious Aircraft, some of which include the capability of developing “world-models”, learning about self and others, and the prerequisites of autonomy, selfhood, and emotions. Taking these cues, the paper focuses on the latest developments and the standards guiding the field of autonomous systems, and suggests that the future of autonomous systems depends on its transition toward consciousness. Finally, inspired by the theories suggesting the levels of consciousness, guided by the Theory of Mind, and building upon state-of-the-art aircraft with autonomous systems, this paper suggests the development of a Conscious Aircraft in three stages: Conscious Aircraft with (1) System-awareness, (2) Self-awareness, and (3) Fleet-awareness, from the perspectives of health management, maintenance, and sustainment

The historical development and basis of human factors guidelines for automated systems in aeronautical operations

In order to derive general design guidelines for automated systems a study was conducted on the utilization and acceptance of existing automated systems as currently employed in several commercial fields. Four principal study area were investigated by means of structured interviews, and in some cases questionnaires. The study areas were aviation, a both scheduled airline and general commercial aviation; process control and factory applications; office automation; and automation in the power industry. The results of over eighty structured interviews were analyzed and responses categoried as various human factors issues for use by both designers and users of automated equipment. These guidelines address such items as general physical features of automated equipment; personnel orientation, acceptance, and training; and both personnel and system reliability

Human Factors Certification of Advanced Aviation Technologies

Proceedings of the Human Factors Certification of Advanced Aviation Technologies Conference held at the Chateau de Bonas, near Toulouse, France, 19-23 July 1993

Suggested procedures and acceptance limits for assessing the safety and ease of use of driver information systems. Final report

Notes: Report covers the period Sept 1991 - Nov 1993Federal Highway Administration, Office of Safety and Traffic Operations Research and Development, McLean, Va.National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/1101/2/88848.0001.001.pd