07 June 2007

Trip Report

Department of Defense

Human Factors Engineering Technical Advisory Group

(DOD HFE TAG) Meeting #57

 14-17 May 2007

 

The 57th meeting of the DoD HFE TAG was held in Portsmouth, VA. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Adrian Salinas, 311th Human Systems Wing, Brooks AFB, TX. The theme of the meeting was Reducing Risk Through Collaboration.  Approximately 100 people attended the meeting, representing the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, DARPA, NASA, FAA, DoD Laboratories, Canadian DRDC, several human factors-related technical societies and industry associations. Several additional personnel representing industry and academia attended as invited speakers.

 

Four items are attached:

·      Background of the DoD HFE TAG, attachment (1)

·      TAG-57 Theme, Attachment (2)

·      Program Summary, attachment (3) 

·      DoD HFE TAG Operating Board, attachment (4)

·      TAG attendees, attachment (5)

·      DoD HFE TAG Policies, attachment (6)

 

Plenary Session Presentations  

 

The DoD HFE TAG Chair for the 57th meeting, Adrian Salinas, welcomed attendees to the meeting and elaborated briefly on the meeting theme.  He stressed that the HFE community needs to understand, communicate, participate and collaborate, as well as share tools, methods and research products.  We also need to ensure that our successful products transition to use.  

 

Reducing Risks by Developing Software Human Factors Metrics and Methods - As a Team was presented by Dr. Patricia Chalmers, Science Advisor, JFCOM (patricial.chalmers@jfcom.mil).  Dr Chalmers is usually the only HFE person on the team. What she usually hears is things like:  You can’t do that! What about the Cost and Schedule? How many subjects do you want?  I don’t care what you do, just get ‘er done!  What we all have in common are tight schedules, funding cuts and the Warfighter.  We need to adept a business model, not just a research model. We need demonstrate return on investment. We also need metrics – measures to assess benefits to our stakeholders (senior managers, fund providers, project managers, software coders, testers and users.  Some examples of practical types metrics we need to consider:

When defining experiments, remember that our war-fighters depend upon the validity of pour experiments.  Everyone needs to cope with funding cuts, down-sizing, and egos. But, if you aren’t developing capabilities for as many services and agencies as possible, you may be developing tomorrow’s problems.

 

 

Navy Human Systems Integration Update was presented by Mr. Richard M. Etheridge, OP-125 (richard.etheridge@navy.mil.  Mr. Etheridge mentioned some recent influences on Navy HSI: 

 

Some history of Navy investment in HSI:

 

According to the National Defense Appropriations Act, the LSI role as we know it today will disappear, with the LSI job going to the service or to a consultant.

 

The way ahead for the Navy includes the following:

 

Reducing Risk for a Global C2 Enterprise Collaboration Capability was presented by Mr. Don Monk, Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Effectiveness Directorate, don.monk@wpafb.af.mil. Mr. Monk’s current job is in visualization and collaboration for air operations centers. Collaboration is viewed on a continuum:

 

 

            Cooperation     ---------------    Coordination      ---------------      Collaboration

      Short term, informal                  Long term – around                            Pervasive &

   Parties have different goals             a single project                                 Continuing

 

True collaboration is about providing a common workspace across all participants.  The Air Force is currently funding 6.2 and 6.3 projects leading to collaboration technology and fully distributed air operations centers.

 

Risk Reduction Through Collaboration: Army Views was presented by Dr. Elizabeth Bowman, Army Research Laboratory-Human Research and Engineering Directorate, ebowman@arl.army.mil. Dr . Bowman briefly described two activities underway examining collaboration:

 

Collaboration between NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) was presented by Dr. Edna Fielder, Baylor College of Medicine, efielder@bcm.edu.  Dr. Fielder is working on collaborative project with NASA in human performance, design and crew procedures. [also please see http://www.nsbri.org]

 

HSI Workshop Meeting - Update on HSI/MANPRINT Guidance to Industry Activity.  Mr. Adrian Salinas held a short update session to provide feedback to the group on the status of an activity requested by Dr. Robert Foster.  Dr. Foster has requested the DoD HFE TAG to provide assistance in providing improved HSI guidance to industry.  Mr. Salinas described a one-day workshop held in Orlando in June 2006, the objective of which was to refine a Data Item Description (DID) on Human Systems Integration Program Plan and to identify additional methods of providing guidance to industry.  Some of those methods included development of generic HSI briefing charts and development of a MIL-Handbook on HSI.

 

Mr. Salinas indicated that Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) will be getting task to provide DoD guidance to the Services.  The TAG’s activities to date are relevant to that work. The TAG needs to provide Dr. Foster with a short description of what has been done thus far.  A 5-10 chart briefing is needed, emphasizing:

 

In addition to the briefing charts, a succinct white paper (1-2 pages) would also be useful.

 

 

Sub-Group Meetings Attended at the DOD HFE TAG:

       

Technical Society/Industry SubTAG.  The Technical Society/Industry (TS/I) Sub TAG met twice during the TAG meeting on Tuesday morning and afternoon.  Dr. Jen Narkevicius (jnarkevicius@jeniussolutions.com) chaired both two meetings.

 

In the morning session,

·      Alan Poston (representing HFES Institute) expressed appreciation for TAG inputs on areas where MIL-STD-1472 requires updates.

·      DIDs – The Navy selected six HFE DIDs for publication, plus two more (one of which is for the HSI Program Plan. Marcie Langelier is the Navy’s point of contact, who is working on them with Jen Narkevicius.

·      Dick Armstrong reported on a Navy project to develop an HSI MIL Handbook.  A draft is planned for late in June or early in July 2997. The TAG will review it following completion of the draft. Dick Armstrong can be contacted at dick_armstrong@teambci.com or (850) 231-1155.

 

In the afternoon session, the first speaker was Stephen C. Merriman (972-705-8219, stephen.c.merriman@boeing.com), who described the HSI/MANPRINT approach being taken on the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) Program.  He described the domains included within program MANPRINT, described the 14 systems constituting the FCS family of systems and briefly discussed the larger “system  of systems” which includes literally dozens of other existing systems with which FCS must interoperate.  ON FCS, the Lead Systems Integrator is responsible for preparing the OSD-mandated Manpower Estimate report as well as the Target Audience Description..  While difficult, these two efforts have provided great insight into the 100+ MOS needed to support the FCS brigade combat teams, the training requirements and the numbers of personnel.  This in-depth M&P knowledge provides essential information for making MANPRINT tradeoffs affecting the MP&T domains.  Challenges in the HFE domain include assuring commonality, not just at the display or crew station level, but also at the platform and system of systems level.  To help assure commonality, the LSI has developed a five-volume Soldier-Machine Interface Standard, applicable to all 20+ FCS suppliers (or “One Team Partners).

 

The second speaker was Julie Stark, PhD (jstark@systechnologies.com) who presented Human Factors Does Not Equal Human Systems Integration.  There are 5major differences between the two terms.

                        Human Factors                        Human Systems Integration

                Discipline / Field of study                           Approach

                        Science-based                                      Policy-based

                        Specific Issues                                                Broad Issues

                        Focused on User                                 Focus on Trade-offs

 

What makes an HSI person?

1.     Extensive knowledge of one domain that doesn’t interact with other domains?

2.     Extensive knowledge in one domain that interacts with other domains?

3.     Knowledge and interactions with two or more domains?

4.     Knowledge of all domains?

 

Human/Robotics Interface Special Interest Group (SIG).  This SIG met for the first time as a closed government session at the last TAG meeting. It was opened up to all TAG participants at TAG-57.

 

The first presenter was Dr. Mark Steinberg, Office of Naval Research and Naval Air Systems Command, who spoke on Span of Control. Some of the current issues in robotics include the control of heterogeneous vehicles, different levels and types of autonomy, significant differences in communications (reliability, bandwidth, etc), highly limited manning on ships (low skill, no dedicated UMS controllers), moving to common control systems and interoperability.

Some approaches to span of control include:

 

·   Theoretical approaches and modeling

o      Requires simplification

o      Difficult to address performance, contingencies, novel systems

o      Single operator approaches may not scale to groups

·   Empirical studies of complex operational scenarios/systems

o      Expensive to do statistically meaningful studies

o      Not clear how much results can be generalized

 

Intelligent Autonomy Program is managed by Dr. Steinberg. This program includes:

·   Mission management of 5-10 heterogeneous unmanned systems of 3-5 types with a common control system.

·  Highly autonomous re-tasking and fully autonomous

·  Multi UxV (variety of unmanned systems)

·  Maritime Image understanding

The main theoretical approach with DARPA has been neglect tolerance: 

 

# Robots = 1 + Neglect time     (how long robot can operate unattended)

                         Interaction time (how long operator needs to attend to the robot)

 

The test approach to the experiment was: 

·  limited training time for 7 operators

·  UUVs and UAVs

·  vehicle operations/sensor operations/mission commanders

 

Measures used:

·  SAGAT for situational awareness

·  Mental Models (drawing maps to represent mental images)

·  TLX plus Cooper-Harper ratings

·  Reaction Time

·  Usability scales

·  User satisfaction scales

 

Next steps: experiment with more complex systems.  Vary the number and type of vehicles, mission complexity, automation levels and types, use common tests and methods.  Future Navy science and technology direction with regard to robotic control:

·   Shared/collaborative control

·   Shared control by non-dedicated teams

·   Impact of cognitive models in autonomous systems

·   Shift from management of vehicles to management of missions

·   Human directed learning by autonomous systems

·   Larger numbers of unmanned vehicles for persistent surveillance of larger, more complex areas

 

The second presenter was Dr. Michael Patzek (937-255-7883, Michael.patzek@wpafb.af.mil), System Control Interfaces Branch, Warfighter Interface Division, Human Effectiveness Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, who spoke on Air Force Unmanned Systems Control Activities.  The following appear to be emerging needs, with the vision being “multi-UAV supervision”:

·  Rapid response capability for ISR and strike