AHFE 2016 International Conference on Human Factors in Robots and Unmanned Systems

This book focuses on the importance of human factors in the development of reliable and safe unmanned systems. It discusses current challenges such as how to improve perceptual and cognitive abilities of robots, develop suitable synthetic vision systems, cope with degraded reliability of unmanned systems, predict robotic behavior in case of a loss of communication, the vision for future soldier-robot teams, human-agent teaming, real-world implications for human-robot interaction, and approaches to standardize both display and control of technologies across unmanned systems. Based on the AHFE 2016 International Conference on Human Factors in Robots and Unmanned Systems, held on July 27-31, 2016, in Walt Disney World®, Florida, USA, this book is expected to foster new discussion and stimulate new ideas towards the development of more reliable, safer, and functional devices for carrying out automated and concurrent tasks

Where's the Beef: How Pervasive is Cognitive Engineering in Military Research & Development Today?

Cognitive Engineering methods were developed to enable human factors practitioners to understand and systematically support the cognitive work of people working “at the sharp end of the spear.” Military members for whom DoD acquisition organizations develop systems are the quintessential “sharp end of the spear.” This panel is proposed to share present-day experience from military and industry reflecting how pervasively Cognitive Engineering is contributing to research and development for the highly complex military systems being operated under conditions of stress, time pressure, and uncertainty today. The implications for human factors practitioners will be highlighted, both in terms of practices to continue and areas for improvement

Human Readiness Levels and Human Views as Tools for User-Centered Design

The Human Readiness Level (HRL) scale is a simple nine-level scale that brings structure and consistency to the real-world application of user-centered design. It enables multidisciplinary consideration of human-focused elements during the system development process. Use of the standardized set of questions comprising the HRL scale results in a single human readiness number that communicates system readiness for human use. The Human Views (HVs) are part of an architecture framework that provides a repository for human-focused system information that can be used during system development to support the evaluation of HRL levels. This paper illustrates how HRLs and HVs can be used in combination to support user-centered design processes. A real-world example for a U.S. Army software modernization program is described to demonstrate application of HRLs and HVs in the context of user-centered design