Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace – Land Systems (DLS) involved in the research project
H-SEIF is a research project where several companies and academia work together to research how, with the support of Big Data and digitalisation, you can make the right decisions at an earlier point in time. The project is a continuation of an earlier project. H-SEIF = “Harvesting value from Big data and Digitalization through a Human Systems-Engineering Innovation Framework”.
H-SEIF2 runs for just over three years (2020-2023) and has a total budget of NOK 30 million, half of which is financed by the Research Council. The rest is financed by participating companies, mainly as own efforts. Read more about the project here.
Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace’s division DLS looks at processes and methods through participation in the H-SEIF project to optimize the performance of complex, dynamic systems that require effective user interaction.
How do we handle the complex systems of the future?
How can we ensure good situational awareness for the operator when our systems are becoming increasingly complex? The weapon station of the future is no longer a single system, but a composite complex system consisting of several operators, several weapon stations and robotic vehicles with varying degrees of autonomy. It is critical that we take into account the role situational awareness plays when an operator is to manage the systems of the future. The preliminary result for DLS is a completed master’s thesis in Systems Engineering at USN. This was carried out by Marcus Frølich in DLS.
Situational awareness is about observing, understanding and predicting how a situation will develop. Throughout 2021, work was done on a master’s thesis in Systems Engineering to assess how DLS can ensure that the products we develop ensure good situational awareness for the operator. A good Human-Machine Interface (HMI) is crucial for the operator’s situational awareness. Through analysis, it became clear that testing of HMI is an area where DLS needs improvement.
To assess the quality of HMI, the measurement of stress as an indication of situational awareness was explored. In critical situations, an increased stress level will have a negative effect on the operator’s understanding of the situation. Thus, it makes sense to design HMIs that seek to reduce an operator’s stress level. Various methods were tested to objectively measure an operator’s stress level without being too intrusive. The two methods that proved to give relatively good stress measurements were measurement of pupil size using glasses for eye tracking and measurement of sweat with electrodes on two fingers, known as galvanic skin response.
In order to be able to regularly test HMI designs in the early phase, we are in practice dependent on a simulator. CORE gives us this option for PROTECTOR RWS. As a result of the focus on test, the HMI team has defined a role as HMI design test developer. With this increased focus on situational awareness in our products, we are in a strong position in the future market with increasingly complex systems.