Urban Air Mobility Fleet Manager Gap Analysis and System Design

NASA's Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Sub-Project is engaged in research to support the introduction of air taxis into the National Airspace System. Such operations will require a range of communication, navigation, and surveillance systems. Air vehicles for UAM are under development and will initially have human pilots. Separation from other aircraft, obstacles, and weather may be a pilot responsibility or provided by an operator's ground-based systems. Eventually, air taxis may be flown from the ground or fly autonomously. There will be a need for dispatch services for UAM. This report presents a gap analysis, data and capability requirements, and workstation design concepts for the UAM dispatcher or Fleet Manager (FM) position

The ergonomics of command and control

Since its inception, just after the Second World War, ergonomics research has paid special attention to the issues surrounding human control of systems. Command and Control environments continue to represent a challenging domain for Ergonomics research. We take a broad view of Command and Control research, to include C2 (Command and Control), C3 (Command, Control and Communication), and C4 (Command, Control, Communication and Computers) as well as human supervisory control paradigms. This special issue of ERGONOMICS aims to present state-of-the-art research into models of team performance, evaluation of novel interaction technologies, case studies, methodologies and theoretical review papers. We are pleased to present papers that detail research on these topics in domains as diverse as the emergency services (e.g., police, fire, and ambulance), civilian applications (e.g., air traffic control, rail networks, and nuclear power) and military applications (e.g., land, sea and air) of command and control. While the domains of application are very diverse, many of the challenges they face share interesting similarities

From Common Operational Picture to Common Situational Understanding : A Framework for Information Sharing in Multi-Organizational Emergency Management

Complex emergencies such as natural disasters are increasing in frequency and scope, in all regions of the world. These emergencies have devastating impacts on people, property, and the environment. Responding to these events and reducing their impact requires that emergency management organizations (EMOs) collaborate in their operations. Complex emergencies require extraordinary efforts from EMOs and often should be handled beyond ordinary routines and structures. Such operations involving multiple stakeholders are typically characterized by inadequate information sharing, decision-making problems, limited situational awareness (SA), and lack of common situational understanding. Despite a high volume of research on these challenges, evaluations from complex disasters and large-scale exercises document that there are still several unsolved issues related to information sharing and the development of common situational understanding. Examples here include fulfillment of heterogeneous information needs, employment of different communication tools and processes with limited interoperability, and information overload resulting from a lack of mechanisms for filtering irrelevant information. Multi-organizational emergency management is an established area of research focusing on how to successfully collaborate and share information for developing common situational understanding. However, the level of complexity and situational dependencies between the involved EMOs create challenges for researchers. An important element for efficient collaboration and information sharing is building and maintaining a common operational picture (COP). Sharing important information is a key element in emergency management involving several EMOs, and both static and dynamic information must be accessible to perform tasks effectively during emergency response. To be proactive and mitigate the emergency impacts requires up-to-date information, both factual information via the COP and the ability to share interpretations and implications through using a communication system for rapid verbal negotiation. The overall research objective is to investigate how stakeholders perceive and develop SA and COP, and to explore and understand key requirements for stakeholders to develop a common situational understanding in complex multi-organizational emergency management.publishedVersio

Knowledge-Intensive Fusion for Situational Awareness: Band Sultan Dam Failure Scenario

This report provides a detailed specification of a humanitarian relief scenario involving significant civil-military cooperation. The scenario aims to highlight some challenges and opportunities for semantic integration and knowledge processing in support of humanitarian relief efforts undertaken against a backdrop of military conflict. The scenario depicts an earthquake and associated flood event occurring in Afghanistan at the time of the US-led coalition effort to displace the former Taliban regime. The flood event occurs as a secondary phenomenon to the earthquake and precipitates a full-scale humanitarian relief effort co-opting the resources of both humanitarian and military agencies. This scenario will serve to showcase the capabilities of the AKTiveSA TDS with respect to enhanced situation awareness and improved information fusion. Such capabilities depend on the ability to exploit multiple sources of information and sophisticated query capabilities in order to expedite the dissemination of relevant information to executive agencies in a timely and appropriate fashion. The scenario narrative draws attention to some of the information requirements demanded by military and humanitarian decision makers in the context of complex emergency situations. It also serves to illustrate the critical knowledge processing capabilities of agents with respect to the assessment of disaster situations and relief effort planning. Finally, the scenario provides an indication of the requirements for visualization and interaction that should be afforded to end-user agents in order to optimise their exploitation of system capabilities. This report also provides background information about the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of humanitarian agencies with respect to disaster relief and reviews guidelines on the nature of civil-military coordination in the context of disaster relief efforts in conflict situations

The SEE-IT Trial: emergency medical services Streaming Enabled Evaluation In Trauma: a feasibility randomised controlled trial

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/BACKGROUND: Use of bystander video livestreaming from scene to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is becoming increasingly common to aid decision making about the resources required. Possible benefits include earlier, more appropriate dispatch and clinical and financial gains, but evidence is sparse. METHODS: A feasibility randomised controlled trial with an embedded process evaluation and exploratory economic evaluation where working shifts during six trial weeks were randomised 1:1 to use video livestreaming during eligible trauma incidents (using GoodSAM Instant-On-Scene) or standard care only. Pre-defined progression criteria were: (1) ≥ 70% callers (bystanders) with smartphones agreeing and able to activate live stream; (2) ≥ 50% requests to activate resulting in footage being viewed; (3) Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) stand-down rate reducing by ≥ 10% as a result of live footage; (4) no evidence of psychological harm in callers or staff/dispatchers. Observational sub-studies included (i) an inner-city EMS who routinely use video livestreaming to explore acceptability in a diverse population; and (ii) staff wellbeing in an EMS not using video livestreaming for comparison to the trial site. RESULTS: Sixty-two shifts were randomised, including 240 incidents (132 control; 108 intervention). Livestreaming was successful in 53 incidents in the intervention arm. Patient recruitment (to determine appropriateness of dispatch), and caller recruitment (to measure potential harm) were low (58/269, 22% of patients; 4/244, 2% of callers). Two progression criteria were met: (1) 86% of callers with smartphones agreed and were able to activate livestreaming; (2) 85% of requests to activate livestreaming resulted in footage being obtained; and two were indeterminate due to insufficient data: (3) 2/6 (33%) HEMS stand down due to livestreaming; (4) no evidence of psychological harm from survey, observations or interviews, but insufficient survey data from callers or comparison EMS site to be confident. Language barriers and older age were reported in interviews as potential challenges to video livestreaming by dispatchers in the inner-city EMS. CONCLUSIONS: Progression to a definitive RCT is supported by these findings. Bystander video livestreaming from scene is feasible to implement, acceptable to both 999 callers and dispatchers, and may aid dispatch decision-making. Further assessment of unintended consequences, benefits and harm is required. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN 11449333 (22 March 2022). https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN11449333.Peer reviewe

From common operational picture to common situational understanding: An analysis based on practitioner perspectives

The concepts of Situational Awareness (SA) and Common Operational Picture (COP) are closely related and well-acknowledged to be crucial factors for effective emergency management. In multi-agency operations, such as extreme weather events, the involved first responders manage the event with different mandates, objectives, and tools which can make it challenging to build a COP. Effective collaboration requires a common situational understanding, based on knowledge about each other’s responsibilities and tasks, mutual respect and trust, as well as common communication tools for emergency communication and information sharing. This paper argues that the COP serves as a basis for deciding on further action, and thus represents a first stage in the process of establishing common situational understanding among the involved actors. The empirical basis for the study includes interviews with Norwegian emergency management stakeholders, analysis of audio-logs, and review of public documents. Based on the analysis we present a framework comprising activities and processes involved in establishing a COP as a basis for common situational understanding.publishedVersio

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Definition of the 2005 flight deck environment

A detailed description of the functional requirements necessary to complete any normal commercial flight or to handle any plausible abnormal situation is provided. This analysis is enhanced with an examination of possible future developments and constraints in the areas of air traffic organization and flight deck technologies (including new devices and procedures) which may influence the design of 2005 flight decks. This study includes a discussion on the importance of a systematic approach to identifying and solving flight deck information management issues, and a description of how the present work can be utilized as part of this approach. While the intent of this study was to investigate issues surrounding information management in 2005-era supersonic commercial transports, this document may be applicable to any research endeavor related to future flight deck system design in either supersonic or subsonic airplane development