Visual Stability of Objects and Environments Viewed through Head-Mounted Displays

Virtual Environments (aka Virtual Reality) is again catching the public imagination and a number of startups (e.g. Oculus) and even not-so-startup companies (e.g. Microsoft) are trying to develop display systems to capitalize on this renewed interest. All acknowledge that this time they will get it right by providing the required dynamic fidelity, visual quality, and interesting content for the concept of VR to take off and change the world in ways it failed to do so in past incarnations. Some of the surprisingly long historical background of the technology that the form of direct simulation that underlies virtual environment and augmented reality displays will be briefly reviewed. An example of a mid 1990's augmented reality display system with good dynamic performance from our lab will be used to illustrate some of the underlying phenomena and technology concerning visual stability of virtual environments and objects during movement. In conclusion some idealized performance characteristics for a reference system will be proposed. Interestingly, many systems more or less on the market now may actually meet many of these proposed technical requirements. This observation leads to the conclusion that the current success of the IT firms trying to commercialize the technology will depend on the hidden costs of using the systems as well as the development of interesting and compelling content

A high performance two degree-of-freedom kinesthetic interface

This summary focuses on the kinesthetic interface of a virtual environment system that was developed at the Newman Laboratory for Biomechanics and Human Rehabilitation at M.I.T. for the study of manual control in both motorically impaired and able-bodied individuals

Discontinuity Detection for Analysis of Telerobot Trajectories

To identify spatial and temporal discontinuities in telerobot movement in order to describe the shift in operators control and error correction strategies from continuous control to move-and-wait strategies. This shift was studied under conditions of simulated increasingly time-delayed teleoperation. The ultimate goal is to determine if the time delay associated with the shift is invariant with independently imposed control difficulty. We expect this shift to manifest itself as changes in the number of discontinuity of movement path. We proposed an approach to spatial and temporal discontinuity detection algorithm for analysis of teleoperated trajectory in three dimensional space. The algorithm provides a simple and potentially objective method for detecting the discontinuity during telerobot operation and evaluating the difficulty of rotational coordinate condition in teleoperation

Air Vehicle Factors Affecting Occupant Health, Comfort, and Productivity

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicles will need to meet the safety and comfort expectations of passengers and crews. However, existing Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness standards for airplanes and rotorcraft are unlikely to adequately address these needs. Some insight into this issue may be gained from research into NASA's approach to human-systems integration standards and guidelines that promote astronaut health, safety, and performance, since both space and UAM vehicles must consider factors such as occupant motion sickness, vibration, and sound levels. Building upon knowledge garnered from the experience of NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, and other international organizations, this presentation will elucidate: 1) how UAM-induced flight factors can impact occupant comfort, productivity, as well as safety; and 2) how government and industry standards could be developed or revised to help assure passenger acceptance of revolutionary Vertical Take Off and Landing aircraft technologies

Misalignment Effect Function Measurement for Oblique Rotation Axes: Counterintuitive Predictions and Theoretical Extensions

The Misalignment Effect Function (MEF) describes the decrement in manual performance associated with a rotation between operators' visual display frame of reference and that of their manual control. It now has been empirically determined for rotation axes oblique to canonical body axes and is compared with the MEF previously measured for rotations about canonical axes. A targeting rule, called the Secant Rule, based on these earlier measurements is derived from a hypothetical process and shown to describe some of the data from three previous experiments. It explains the motion trajectories determined for rotations less than 65deg in purely kinematic terms without the need to appeal to a mental rotation process. Further analysis of this rule in three dimensions applied to oblique rotation axes leads to a somewhat surprising expectation that the difficulty posed by rotational misalignment should get harder as the required movement is shorter. This prediction is confirmed. Geometry underlying this rule also suggests analytic extensions for predicting more generally the difficulty of making movements in arbitrary directions subject to arbitrary misalignments

Three Dimensional Tracking in Augmented Environments: User Performance Trade-Offs Between System Latency and Update Rate

Three-dimensional tracking performance was measured as a function of system latency (35-335 msec) and update rate (10-30 Hz). Twelve subjects used a custom, see-through head mounted stereo display to control the position of a virtual response cursor with hand and body movements. User performance trade-offs between latency and update rate were measured with objective and subjective measures and a possible performance model was evaluated. The results indicate that earlier findings suggesting that latency influenced tracking performance more than did update rate, could be due to previous studies having tested latency over a larger dynamic range. Iso-performance contours are used to compare objective performance with subjective perception and performance judgments

Evaluation of Human and AutomationRobotics Integration Needs for Future Human Exploration Missions

NASA employs Design Reference Missions (DRMs) to define potential architectures for future human exploration missions to deep space, the Moon, and Mars. While DRMs to these destinations share some components, each mission has different needs. This paper focuses on the human and automation/robotic integration needs for these future missions, evaluating them with respect to NASA research gaps in the area of space human factors engineering. The outcomes of our assessment is a human and automation/robotic (HAR) task list for each of the four DRMs that we reviewed (i.e., Deep Space Sortie, Lunar Visit/Habitation, Deep Space Habitation, and Planetary), a list of common critical HAR factors that drive HAR design

Reaching Errors Under G-Loading (and Vibration)

Humans show increased systematic and random errors when reaching for targets at 3.8Gx with or without added vibration

Effects of Transverse Seat Vibration on Near-Viewing Readability of Alphanumeric Symbology

We measured the impacts on human visual function of a range of vibration levels (0.15, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7 g) at the frequency and along the axis of the anticipated Ares thrust oscillation. We found statistically significant and equivalent decrements in performance on a reading and a numeric processing task at tested vibration levels above 0.3 g (0-to-peak), but no evidence of after-effects. At the smallest font and highest vibration level tested, the average effect was a 50 percent increase in response time and six-fold increase in errors. Our findings support a preliminary trade space in which currently planned Orion font sizes and text spacing appear to be too small to support accurate and efficient reading at the tested vibration levels above 0.3 g, but not too small to support reading at 0.3 g. This study does not address potential impacts on crew cognitive decision-making or motor control and does not test either the full induced Orion-Ares environment with its sustained Gx-loading or the full complexity of the final Orion seat-helmet-suit interface. A final determination of the Orion-Ares program limit on vibration must take these additional factors into consideration and, thus, may need to be lower than that needed to support effective reading at 1-Gx bias

Future Exploration Missions' Tasks Associated with the Risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation/Robotic Integration

NASA's Human Research Program (HRP) funds research efforts aimed at mitigating various human health and performance risks, including the Risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation/Robotic Integration (HARI). As such, within HRP, the Human Factors and Behavioral Performance (HFBP) Element tasked an evaluation of future HARI needs in order to scope and focus the HARI risk research plan. The objective was to provide a systematic understanding of the critical factors associated with effective HARI that will be necessary to achieve the future mission goals for near- and deep-space exploration. Future mission goals are specified by NASA Design Reference Missions (DRMs) that are pertinent to the HRP. The outcome of this evaluation is a set of NASA-relevant HARI tasks, factors, and interactions required for exploration-class missions