Exploring Ecological Interface Design for Future ROV Capabilities in Maritime Command and Control

Future maritime command teams will process more data, a trend driven by continued technological advances and new sensors. Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are contributing to this, as their usage is steadily growing in civilian and military contexts. A key challenge is effective integration of growing volumes of data into the command team, ensuring optimal performance for completing the variety of missions and tasks that may be required. In particular, operator cognitive capacity should not be exceeded, as this may negatively impact global team performance. A review of ROV usage revealed that they are predominately deployed to understand and interact with their environment. Ecological Interface Design (EID) aims to make system constraints apparent and reduce operator workload. As the aims of EID are synergistic with ROV operation, it is hypothesised that operator workload may be reduced if interfaces are implemented that adhere to these design principles. In the current work EID is proposed as a design paradigm for ROV UIs, to facilitate optimal future performance.

[1]  Robert Warren Button,et al.  A Survey of Missions for Unmanned Undersea Vehicles , 2009 .

[2]  Isaac R. Porche,et al.  Data Flood: Helping the Navy Address the Rising Tide of Sensor Information , 2014 .

[3]  Sheldon Rubin.  Mini-ROVs, going where no ROV has gone before , 2013, 2013 OCEANS - San Diego.

[4]  Ryan M. Kilgore,et al.  Increasing the Transparency of Unmanned Systems: Applications of Ecological Interface Design , 2014, HCI.

[5]  C. Pontbriand,et al.  An integrated, underwater optical /acoustic communications system , 2010, OCEANS'10 IEEE SYDNEY.

[6]  Jens Rasmussen,et al.  Skills, rules, and knowledge; signals, signs, and symbols, and other distinctions in human performance models , 1983, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[7]  Neville A Stanton,et al.  Representing distributed cognition in complex systems: how a submarine returns to periscope depth , 2014, Ergonomics.

[8]  K J Vicente,et al.  Making the most of ecological interface design: the role of individual differences. , 2000, Applied ergonomics.

[9]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Ecological Interface Design Two Decades On: Whatever Happened to the SRK Taxonomy? , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems.

[10]  Andrew Stewart,et al.  An interactive interface for multi-pilot ROV intervention , 2016, OCEANS 2016 - Shanghai.

[11]  Nancy J. Cooke.  Human Factors of Remotely Operated Vehicles , 2006 .

[12]  Ronald O'Rourke.  Navy Virginia (SSN-774) Class Attack Submarine Procurement: Background and Issues for Congress , 2011 .

[13]  B. Fletcher,et al.  UUV master plan: a vision for navy UUV development , 2000, OCEANS 2000 MTS/IEEE Conference and Exhibition. Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37158).

[14]  Michael A. Goodrich,et al.  Ecological Interfaces for Improving Mobile Robot Teleoperation , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Robotics.

[15]  Kim J. Vicente,et al.  Ecological interface design for a power plant feedwater subsystem , 1996 .

[16]  Marc S. Stewart,et al.  A Means to Networked Persistent Undersea Surveillance (U) , 2006 .

[17]  K. J. Vicente,et al.  Cognitive Work Analysis: Toward Safe, Productive, and Healthy Computer-Based Work , 1999 .

[18]  D. Cecchi,et al.  Autonomous underwater vehicles for scientific and naval operations , 2004 .

[19]  D. Lane,et al.  The importance of trust between operator and AUV: Crossing the human/computer language barrier , 2007, OCEANS 2007 - Europe.

[20]  Louis L. Whitcomb,et al.  Preliminary field experience with the DVLNAV integrated navigation system for oceanographic submersibles , 2004 .

[21]  Kim J. Vicente,et al.  Ecological interface design: theoretical foundations , 1992, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[22]  Najmedin Meshkati,et al.  Integration of workstation, job, and team structure design in complex human-machine systems: A framework , 1991 .

[23]  Mickaël Causse,et al.  Anticipating human error before it happens: Towards a psychophysiological model for online prediction of mental workload , 2012 .

[24]  Kim J. Vicente,et al.  Supporting operator problem solving through ecological interface design , 1995, IEEE Trans. Syst. Man Cybern..

[25]  Guy H. Walker,et al.  A review of sociotechnical systems theory: a classic concept for new command and control paradigms , 2008 .

[26]  R. L. Wernli.  AUVs-a technology whose time has come , 2002, Proceedings of the 2002 Interntional Symposium on Underwater Technology (Cat. No.02EX556).

[27]  Neville A Stanton,et al.  How a submarine returns to periscope depth: analysing complex socio-technical systems using Cognitive Work Analysis. , 2014, Applied ergonomics.

[28]  Kevin W Williams,et al.  A Summary of Unmanned Aircraft Accident/Incident Data: Human Factors Implications , 2004 .

[29]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  A decision ladder analysis of eco-driving: the first step towards fuel-efficient driving behaviour , 2015, Ergonomics.

[30]  Robert L. Wernli.  Low Cost UUV's for Military Applications: Is the Technology Ready? , 2000 .

[31]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Up periscope: understanding submarine command and control teamwork during a simulated return to periscope depth , 2017, Cognition, Technology & Work.

[32]  Nada J. Pavlovic,et al.  Human Factors Issues with Operating Unmanned Underwater Vehicles , 2011 .

[33]  Tim Hardy,et al.  Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) deployment and retrieval considerations for submarines , 2008 .

[34]  Chenguang Yang,et al.  Robust adaptive motion control for Remotely Operated Vehicles with velocity constraints , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics.

[35]  Kim J. Vicente,et al.  Inducing effective operator control through ecological interface design , 1996, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[36]  Kim J. Vicente,et al.  Ecological Interface Design: Progress and Challenges , 2002, Hum. Factors.

[37]  R. L. Wernli,et al.  Trends in UUV development within the US Navy , 1997, Oceans '97. MTS/IEEE Conference Proceedings.

[38]  Guy H. Walker,et al.  From the 6 Ps of Planning to the 4 Ds of Digitization: Difficulties, Dilemmas, and Defective Decision Making , 2010, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Interact..