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Conducting User Experience Design (UXD) research in the context of automated driving today is challenging due to the lack of availability of automated cars that are SAE level 3 or above. This Extended Abstract presents a novel methodological tool for rapid prototyping, as well as testing and evaluation of future automotive interface design ideas. The tool combines Virtual Reality (VR) and real-world driving videos in a flexible Unity3D environment to create a visually realistic and immersive experiences. Using portable VR headsets, these exploratory experiences can be safely created anywhere anytime with little overhead, as shown through this interactive demo. We provide insights of using this method in the context of two exploring two concepts that use novel windscreen technologies and AR applications for level 3 automated cars and above.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of sonification, continuous auditory alert mapped to the state of a monitored task, in supporting unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) supervisory control. Background: UAV supervisory control requires monitoring each UAV across multiple tasks (e.g., course maintenance) via a predominantly visual display, which currently is supported with discrete auditory alerts. Sonification has been shown to enhance monitoring performance in domains such as anesthesiology by allowing an operator to immediately determine an entity's (e.g., patient) current and projected states, and is a promising alternative to discrete alerts in UAV control. However, minimal research compares sonification to discrete alerts, and no research assesses the effectiveness of sonification for monitoring multiple entities (e.g., multiple UAVs). Method: An experiment was conducted with 39 military personnel, using a simulated setup. Participants controlled single and multiple UAVs, and received sonifications or discrete alerts based on UAV course deviations and late target arrivals. Results: Regardless of the number of UAVs supervised, the course deviation sonification resulted in 1.9 s faster reactions to course deviations, a 19% enhancement from discrete alerts. However, course deviation sonification interfered with the effectiveness of discrete late arrival alerts in general, and with operator response to late arrivals when supervising multiple vehicles. Conclusions: Sonifications can outperform discrete alerts when designed to aid operators to predict future states of monitored tasks. However, sonifications may mask other auditory alerts, and interfere with other monitoring tasks that require divided attention., US Army through a Small Business Innovation Research led by Charles River Analytics, Inc.

The risk of maritime collisions and groundings has dramatically increased in the past five years despite technological advancements such as GPS-based navigation tools and electronic charts which may add to, instead of reduce, workload. We propose that an automated path planning tool for littoral navigation can reduce workload and improve overall system efficiency, particularly under time pressure. To this end, a Maritime Automated Path Planner (MAPP) was developed, incorporating information requirements developed from a cognitive task analysis, with special emphasis on designing for trust. Human-in-the-loop experimental results showed that MAPP was successful in reducing the time required to generate an optimized path, as well as reducing path lengths. The results also showed that while users gave the tool high acceptance ratings, they rated the MAPP as average for trust, which we propose is the appropriate level of trust for such a system., This work was sponsored by Rite Solutions Inc., Assett Inc., Mikel Inc., and the Office of Naval Research. We would also like to thank Northeast Maritime Institute, the MIT NROTC detachment, the crew of the USS New Hampshire, and the anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly improved the paper.

Objectives: A pilot study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of continuous haptic peripheral displays in supporting multiple UAV supervisory control. Background: Previous research shows that continuous auditory peripheral displays can enhance operator performance in monitoring events that are continuous in nature, such as monitoring how well UAVs stay on their pre-planned courses. This research also shows that auditory alerts can be masked by other auditory information. Command and control operations are generally performed in noisy environments with multiple auditory alerts presented to the operators. In order to avoid this masking problem, another potentially useful sensory channel for providing redundant information to UAV operators is the haptic channel. Method: A pilot experiment was conducted with 13 participants, using a simulated multiple UAV supervisory control task. All participants completed two haptic feedback conditions (continuous and threshold), where they received alerts based on UAV course deviations and late arrivals to targets. Results: Threshold haptic feedback was found to be more effective for late target arrivals, whereas continuous haptic feedback resulted in faster reactions to course deviations. Conclusions: Continuous haptic feedback appears to be more appropriate for monitoring events that are continuous in nature (i.e., how well a UAV keeps its course). In contrast, threshold haptic feedback appears to better support response to discrete events (i.e., late target arrivals). Future research: Because this is a pilot study, more research is needed to validate these preliminary findings. A direct comparison between auditory and haptic feedback is also needed to provide better insights into the potential benefits of multi-modal peripheral displays in command and control of multiple UAVs., Prepared for Charles River Analytics, Inc.

The goal of this research is to develop a methodology to select supervisory control metrics. This methodology is based on cost-benefit analyses and generic metric classes. In the context of this research, a metric class is defined as the set of metrics that quantify a certain aspect or component of a system. Generic metric classes are developed because metrics are mission-specific, but metric classes are generalizable across different missions. Cost-benefit analyses are utilized because each metric set has advantages, limitations, and costs, thus the added value of different sets for a given context can be calculated to select the set that maximizes value and minimizes costs. This report summarizes the findings of the first part of this research effort that has focused on developing a supervisory control metric taxonomy that defines generic metric classes and categorizes existing metrics. Future research will focus on applying cost benefit analysis methodologies to metric selection. Five main metric classes have been identified that apply to supervisory control teams composed of humans and autonomous platforms: mission effectiveness, autonomous platform behavior efficiency, human behavior efficiency, human behavior precursors, and collaborative metrics. Mission effectiveness measures how well the mission goals are achieved. Autonomous platform and human behavior efficiency measure the actions and decisions made by the humans and the automation that compose the team. Human behavior precursors measure human initial state, including certain attitudes and cognitive constructs that can be the cause of and drive a given behavior. Collaborative metrics address three different aspects of collaboration: collaboration between the human and the autonomous platform he is controlling, collaboration among humans that compose the team, and autonomous collaboration among platforms. These five metric classes have been populated with metrics and measuring techniques from the existing

Objectives: A pilot study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of continuous haptic peripheral displays in supporting multiple UAV supervisory control. Background: Previous research shows that continuous auditory peripheral displays can enhance operator performance in monitoring events that are continuous in nature, such as monitoring how well UAVs stay on their pre-planned courses. This research also shows that auditory alerts can be masked by other auditory information. Command and control operations are generally performed in noisy environments with multiple auditory alerts presented to the operators. In order to avoid this masking problem, another potentially useful sensory channel for providing redundant information to UAV operators is the haptic channel. Method: A pilot experiment was conducted with 13 participants, using a simulated multiple UAV supervisory control task. All participants completed two haptic feedback conditions "continuous and threshold", where they received alerts based on UAV course deviations and late arrivals to targets. Results: Threshold haptic feedback was found to be more effective for late target arrivals, whereas continuous haptic feedback resulted in faster reactions to course deviations. Conclusions: Continuous haptic feedback appears to be more appropriate for monitoring events that are continuous in nature "i.e., how well a UAV keeps its course". In contrast, threshold haptic feedback appears to better support response to discrete events "i.e., late target arrivals". Future research: Because this is a pilot study, more research is needed to validate these preliminary findings. A direct comparison between auditory and haptic feedback is also needed to provide better insights into the potential benefits of multi-modal peripheral displays in command and control of multiple UAVs., This research is sponsored by the United States Army through a Small Business Innovation Research lead by Charles River Analytics, Inc. Prepared in cooperation with the Humans and Automation Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

The Taguchi method was used to investigate the optimum conditions for the processing of a magnesite ore from Erzurum-Oltu in Turkey. The results showed that 99.9% extraction could be achieved using a 2 M acid concentration, reaction time 120 min, temperature 75 degrees C, solid- liquid ratio 0.125 g/ml and a particle size of -319 micrometres. The percentages of the main impurities in the solution were 0.52% Fe, 1.98% Si and 1.4% Ca., The Taguchi method was used to investigate the optimum conditions for the processing of a magnesite ore from Erzurum-Oltu in Turkey. The results showed that 99.9% extraction could be achieved using a 2 M acid concentration, reaction time 120 min, temperature 75 degrees C, solid- liquid ratio 0.125 g/ml and a particle size of -319 micrometres. The percentages of the main impurities in the solution were 0.52% Fe, 1.98% Si and 1.4% Ca.