Contextual Inquiry of a Major US Airline Systems Operation Center

A contextual inquiry was conducted at the airline’s Systems Operations Control (SOC) from the 13-15th of November 2006. A total of 26 hours of direct observation were conducted with various members of the SOC Staff including several of the Operations Coordinators, the ATC Coordinators, and the Operations Manager. During the inquiry a wide variety of situations occurred: unscheduled maintenance delays, estimated ready time slips, multiple hub ground delay programs, severely reduced arrival rates due to cross-directional winds, ground delay program revisions, and diversions of international flights. The vast majority of these situations were handled as if they were no different from routine operations; however, there were moments when the key SOC personnel were fully involved in the situation and the normal coordination and collaboration between the ATCCs, OCs, MOC and crew coordinators reverted to top down command and control. Thus the workload is not evenly distributed across all SOC personnel because of the geographic distribution of responsibilities. In addition to these observations this inquiry identified three issues with specific design implications, all centered around the OC’s work practices: overly involved coordination sessions with MOC, lack of control of printer output, and the use of schedule printouts as a primary source of solution information. All three of these issues lead to inefficiencies in the SOC operation, despite which, however, the SOC in general and the OCs in particular are able to remain effective. This report suggests that the OCs could become more efficient by shedding some of their printer maintenance tasks, extended MOC coordination sessions, and more effectively using software tools. In order to achieve this high level of effectiveness the SOC personnel actively adapt their roles and the balance of power depending on the level of operational disruption. With the addition of an MOC representative in the SOC or the availability of key maintenancerelated scheduling data, increased effectiveness may also be achievable under conditions of limited disruption. Changing the flow of messages from the printer to an on-screen system will help minimize the ‘busy’ work associated with maintaining the printer and keeping up with the printouts. Introducing new hardware and software tools to aid with the schedule sorting and filtering may also provide increased efficiency, especially for the more junior OCs

Network Monitoring Traffic Compression Using Singular Value Decomposition

With increasing magnitude of computer network activity, the ability to monitor all network traffic is becoming strained. The need to represent large amounts of data in smaller forms is essential to continued growth of network monitoring tools and network administrators\u27 capabilities. Network monitoring captures many different measurements of the data flowing through the network. This thesis introduces a new method of sending network traffic monitoring data that reduces the overall volume of data from the traditional method of packet capture. By populating a matrix with specific data values in a sparse format, this experiment reduces the data using singular value decomposition (SVD) compression. Matrices were populated using network monitoring datasets from 1996 Information Exploration Shootout (IES). The data populated into the matrices was varied along time frame and data field to determine if the SVD compression algorithm reduced the quantity of original data values. Results indicated that the quantity of data varies dependent on the volume of the data field chosen. The matrix population method was based on port values to allow combining values within the matrix cells. The results trended to a successful reduction of data if the time frame is increased significantly

Airline Command and Control: An Ethnographic Study

The role of airline operations control centers in the national air transportation system is increasing. Yet, the role of airline operations personnel has not been well studied. This paper presents the findings of a series of ethnographic studies examining the work of airline Operational Managers (OMs) across several major and regional airlines. The role of airline OMs, and the information and tools they use to solve problems and maintain the airline’s published schedule are discussed. Additionally, several work models developed as a result of the ethnography are presented and discussed. The work models include an information flow model, cultural model, artifact models, and sequence models. Implications are presented and discussed which transcend airline operations and are applicable to command and control more generally

Converging Measures and an Emergent Model: A Meta-Analysis of Human-Automation Trust Questionnaires

A significant challenge to measuring human-automation trust is the amount of construct proliferation, models, and questionnaires with highly variable validation. However, all agree that trust is a crucial element of technological acceptance, continued usage, fluency, and teamwork. Herein, we synthesize a consensus model for trust in human-automation interaction by performing a meta-analysis of validated and reliable trust survey instruments. To accomplish this objective, this work identifies the most frequently cited and best-validated human-automation and human-robot trust questionnaires, as well as the most well-established factors, which form the dimensions and antecedents of such trust. To reduce both confusion and construct proliferation, we provide a detailed mapping of terminology between questionnaires. Furthermore, we perform a meta-analysis of the regression models that emerged from those experiments which used multi-factorial survey instruments. Based on this meta-analysis, we demonstrate a convergent experimentally validated model of human-automation trust. This convergent model establishes an integrated framework for future research. It identifies the current boundaries of trust measurement and where further investigation is necessary. We close by discussing choosing and designing an appropriate trust survey instrument. By comparing, mapping, and analyzing well-constructed trust survey instruments, a consensus structure of trust in human-automation interaction is identified. Doing so discloses a more complete basis for measuring trust emerges that is widely applicable. It integrates the academic idea of trust with the colloquial, common-sense one. Given the increasingly recognized importance of trust, especially in human-automation interaction, this work leaves us better positioned to understand and measure it.Comment: 44 pages, 6 figures. Submitted, in part, to ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI

UD to Offer Summer Physics Course

News release announces that the University of Dayton Department of Physics will conduct an intensive summer physics program

Formal Modeling and Analysis for Interactive Hybrid Systems

An effective strategy for discovering certain kinds of automation surprise and other problems in interactive systems is to build models of the participating (automated and human) agents and then explore all reachable states of the composed system looking for divergences between mental states and those of the automation. Various kinds of model checking provide ways to automate this approach when the agents can be modeled as discrete automata. But when some of the agents are continuous dynamical systems (e.g., airplanes), the composed model is a hybrid (i.e., mixed continuous and discrete) system and these are notoriously hard to analyze. We describe an approach for very abstract modeling of hybrid systems using relational approximations and their automated analysis using infinite bounded model checking supported by an SMT solver. When counterexamples are found, we describe how additional constraints can be supplied to direct counterexamples toward plausible scenarios that can be confirmed in high-fidelity simulation. The approach is illustrated though application to a known (and now corrected) human-automation interaction problem in Airbus aircraft

Design of Support Systems for Dynamic Decision Making in Airline Operations

Presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium, Charlottesville, Virginia, April, 2006 and published in the Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Systems and Information Engineering Design Symposium. ©2006 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.To date, there has been very little research conducted on the design of support systems for dynamic decisions environments, such as airline operations. The paper discusses the idea that the regulation of dynamic systems has implications for both "internal" and "external" dynamic systems with respect to the human operator. Hollnagel's Contextual Control Modes are suggested as a framework for designing such support systems, noting that they can identify requirements specific to different contextual control modes

Adaptive user interface for semi-automatic operation

A method is provided for semi-automatic operation of a portable control device for a remote-controlled, unmanned vehicle. The method includes the steps of monitoring parameters of an operational environment of the portable control device, switching from a manual operation mode to a semi-automatic operation mode in response to occurrence of predetermined criteria within the operational environment, and presenting a semi-automatic operation graphical user interface to a user of the portable control device. The semi-automatic operation graphical user interface includes a reduced set of user interfaces for the semi-automatic operation mode presented by the portable control device

Adaptive user interface for semi-automatic operation of a remote-controlled, unmanned vehicle

The present invention provides a method as defined in claim 1. The method may include the features of any one or more of dependent claims 2 to 4. The present invention provides a device as defined in claim 5. The device may include the features of any one or more of dependent claims 6 to 9. A method is provided for semi-automatic operation of a portable control device for a remote-controlled unmanned vehicle. The method includes the steps of monitoring parameters of an operational environment of the portable control device, switching from a manual operation mode to a semi-automatic operation mode in response to measured and weighted combination of detected inputs and the monitored parameters within the operational environment, and, while in the semi-automatic operation mode, presenting a semi-automatic operation graphical user interface to a user of the portable control device. The semi-automatic operation graphical user interface includes a reduced set of user input requirements and a reduced set of information displayed for the semi-automatic operation mode presented by the portable control device. In addition, a portable control device is provided for remotely controlling a unmanned vehicle. The portable control device includes a graphic user interface (GUI) and a controller. The GUI presents information thereon to a user of the portable control device and receives user inputs thereby. The controller is coupled to the GUI and controls the operational mode of the portable control device. The controller switches from a manual operation mode to a semi-automatic operation mode in response to a measured and weighted combination of detected inputs and the monitored parameters within the operational environment of the portable control device (including user control of modes) and provides GUI operational signals to the GUI device for presenting a semi-automatic operation graphical user interface to the user while in the semi-automatic operation mode, the semi-automatic operation graphical user interface including a reduced set of user input requirements and a reduced set of information displayed for the semi-automatic operation mode presented by the portable control device. Further, an unmanned vehicle system is provided which includes a remote-controlled unmanned vehicle and a portable control device. The portable control device is coupled to the unmanned vehicle, providing operational control signals thereto and receiving operational parameter signals and video signals therefrom. The unmanned vehicle includes communication circuitry, a movement control module, an unmanned vehicle controller, and a visual recording module. The communication circuitry of the unmanned vehicle receives operational control signals from the portable control device and transmits operational parameter signals and visual signals to the portable control device. The movement control module controls the movement of the unmanned vehicle in response to movement control signals and generates a first portion of the operational parameter signals in response to operation of the movement control module. The surveillance vehicle controller is coupled to the communication circuitry. In addition, the surveillance vehicle controller is coupled to the movement control module and generates the movement control signals in response to a first portion of the operational control signals. The visual recording module records visual signals representative of one or more views from the unmanned vehicle in response to visual control signals and generates a second portion of the operational parameter signals in response to operation of the visual recording module. The unmanned vehicle controller is also coupled to the visual recording module and generates the visual control signals in response to a second portion of the operational control signals. The portable control device includes communication circuitry, a graphic user interface (GUI), and a portable control device controller. The communication circuitry of the portable control device receives the operational parameter signals and the visual signals from the unmanned vehicle and transmits the operational control signals. The GUI presents visual information to a user of the portable control device and receives user inputs thereby. The portable control device controller is coupled to the GUI and controls the operational mode of the portable control device. The portable control device controller monitors an operational environment of the portable control device and switches from a manual operation mode to a semi-automatic operation mode in response to a measured and weighted combination of detected inputs and monitored parameters within the operational environment of the portable control device, the controller providing GUI operational signals to the GUI for presenting a semi-automatic operation graphical user interface to the user while in the semi-automatic operation mode, the semi-automatic operation graphical user interface including a reduced set of user interfaces for the semi-automatic operation mode presented by the portable control device