Posts Tagged "Human"

Blue Eyes – Monitoring Human – Operator System

Posted by admin on May 5, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

Blue Eyes

Monitoring Human-Operator System

ABSTRACT:

Human error is still one of the most frequent causes of

catastrophe and ecological disasters. The main reason

is that the monitoring systems concern only the state of

the processes where as human contribution to the overall

performance of the system is left unsupervised. Since the

control instruments are automated to a large extent, a human

operator becomes a passive observer of the supervised

system, which results in weariness and vigilance drop.

Thus, he may not notice important changes of

indications causing financial or ecological consequences

and a threat to human life. It therefore is crucial to assure

that the operator’s conscious brain is involved in an active

system supervising over the whole work time period. It is

possible to measure indirectly the level of the operator’s

conscious brain involvement using eye motility analysis.

INTRODUCTION:

What is BlueEyes?

? BLUE EYES is a technology, which aims at creating computational machines that have perceptual and sensory abilities like those of human beings.

? The basic idea behind this technology is to give computer human power.

? For example, we can understand humans’ emotional state by his facial expressions. If we add these perceptual abilities to computers, we would enable them to work together with human beings as intimate partners.

? It provides technical means for monitoring and recording human-operator’s physiological condition.

What is BlueEyes not?

? Doesn’t predict nor interfere with operator’s thoughts.

? Cannot force directly the operator to work.

How was the term blue-eyes coined?

? Blue in this term stands for Bluetooth, which enables reliable wireless communication and the

Eyes because the eye movement enables us to obtain a lot of interesting and important information.

How are blue and eyes related?

? As the idea is to monitor and record operator’s basic physiological parameters, the most important physiological activity is the movement of eyes.

? For a computer to sense the eye movement, wiring between operator and the system is required.

But, this is a serious limitation of the operator’s mobility and disables his operations in large control rooms.

? So utilization of wireless technology becomes essential which can be implemented through blue tooth technology.

Need for blue eyes?

Is it necessary to make computer function what a human brain does?

? Yes, human error is still one of the most frequent causes of catastrophes (calamity) and ecological disasters, because human contribution to the overall performance of the system is left unsupervised.

? The control instruments within the machine have automated it to large extent, thus Human operator becomes a passive observer of the supervised system, resulting in weariness and vigilance drop, but the user needs to active.

But Why?

Is it really needed that a human brain be active?

? He may not notice important changes of indications causing financial or ecological consequences, which is a threat to human life.

? Thus, it’s crucial that operator’s brain is involved in an active system supervising over the whole work time period.

What can we do with blue eyes technology?

? It has the ability to gather information about you and interact with you through special techniques like facial recognition, speech recognition, etc.

? It can even understand your emotions at the touch of the mouse.

? It can verify your identity, feel your presence, and start interacting with you.

? The machine can understand what a user wants, where he is looking at, and even realize his physical or emotional states.

? It realizes the urgency of the situation through the mouse.

? For instance if you ask the computer to dial to your friend at his office, it understands the situation and establishes a connection.

? It can reconstruct the course of operator’s work.

Key features of the system:

? Visual attention monitoring (eye motility analysis).

? Physiological condition monitoring (pulse rate, blood oxygenation).

? Operator’s position detection (standing, lying).

? Wireless data acquisition using Bluetooth technology.

? Real-time user-defined alarm triggering.

? Physiological data, operator’s voice and overall view of the control room recording

recorded data playback.

How can we give computer the human power?

? It uses non-obtrusive sensing method, employing most modern video cameras and microphones to identify the users’ actions through the use of imparted sensory abilities.

? The blue eyes system checks the physiological parameters like eye movement, heart beat rate and blood oxygenation against abnormal and undesirable values and triggers user-defined alarms when necessary.

? Blue eyes technology requires designing a personal area network linking all the operators and the supervising system.

? As the operator using his sight and hearing, senses the state of the controlled system, the supervising system will look after his physiological condition.

? The use of a miniature CMOS camera integrated into the eye movement sensor will enable the system to calculate the point of gaze and observe what the operator is actually looking at.

? Introducing voice recognition algorithm will facilitate the communication between the operator and the central system and simplify authorization process.

STRUCTURE:

? Blue eyes system consists of a mobile measuring device called Data Acquisition Unit (DAU) and a central analytical system called Central System Unit (CSU).

OVERALL SYSTEM DIAGRAM

DATA ACQUISITION UNIT:

? It maintains Bluetooth connections.

? Gets information from the sensor.

? Sends information over the wireless connection.

? Delivers the alarm messages sent from the Central System Unit (CSU) to the operator.

? Handles personalized ID cards.

? Jazz Multisensor:

• It’s an eye movement sensor, to provide necessary physiological data in Data Acquisition Unit (DAU).

• It supplies raw digital data regarding eye position, the level of blood oxygenation acceleration along horizontal and vertical axes and ambient light intensity.

• Eye movement can be measured using direct infrared oculographic transducers.

JAZZ MULTISENSOR

CENTRAL SYSTEM UNIT:

? Maintains blue tooth connections in the other side.

? Buffers incoming sensor data.

? Performs on-line data analysis.

? Records the conclusion for further exploration.

? Provides visualization interface.

TYPES OF USERS:

? Users belong to three categories:

• Operators

• Supervisors

• System administrators

Operator:

? Operator is a person whose physiological parameters are supervised.

? The operator wears the DAU.

? The only functions offers to the operator are Authorization to the system and receiving alarm alerts.

? Authorization: Operator has to enter his personal PIN into DAU, if PIN is accepted, authorization is said to be complete.

? Receiving Alerts: This function supplies the operator with the most important alerts about his and his co-workers’ condition and mobile device state.

Supervisor:

? He is the person responsible for analyzing operators’ condition and performance.

? The supervisor receives tools for inspecting present values of the parameters (on-line browsing) as well as browsing the results of the long-term analysis (off-line browsing).

System Administrator:

? He is the user that maintains the system.

? The administrator is delivered tools for adding new operators to the database. Defining alarm conditions.

? Configuring logging tools.

? Creating new analyzer modules.

ADMINISTRATIVE

APPLICATIONS:

? Blue Eyes system can be applied in every working environment requiring permanent operator’s attention.

? At power plant control rooms.

? At captain bridges.

? At flight control centers.

? Professional drivers.

Conclusion:

? The wireless link between the sensors worn by the operator and the supervising system makes it possible to improve overall reliability, safety and assures proper quality of system performance.

? These new possibilities can cover areas such as industry, transportation, military command centers or operation theaters.

? Researchers are attempting to add more capabilities to computers that will allow them to interact like humans, recognize human presents, talk, listen, or even guess their feelings.

? It avoids potential threats resulting from human errors, such as weariness, oversight, tiredness.

REFERENCES:

1.Carpenter R. H. S., Movements of the eyes, 2nd edition, Pion Limited, 1988, London.

2.Quinlan J. R., C4.5 programs for machine learning, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1993,San Mateo, California.

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Consumers Demand Control Through Human Machine Interface Technology

Posted by admin on Apr 30, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

“Human-Inter-what?” clipped Simon, peeking over his morning paper with a loud crinkle. A favorite farmer of seventy-eight years at my local coffee shop, Simon never failed to give me the truth precisely as he saw it. I had asked him what he thought of Human Machine Interface Technology. “Sounds like science fiction to me. Don’t we already interact – interface, whatever – with machines? How else are we supposed to run the things?”

I laughed, but in a down-to-earth, back-to-common-sense way, Simon was right on. One encyclopedia explains Human-Machine Interface (HMI) technology, also known as user interface technology as the whole means by which human users interact with a particular system, such as a device, computer program or machine. HMI provides a mechanism by which users can input or manipulate a system, and provides the system a way to output or produce the effects of the users’ manipulation.

It’s not really so complicated. HMI is a broad term describing the “layer” between a person interacting with the machine and the machine itself. Applications are varied – from medical prostheses, such as cochlear implants, to computer-human interactions to the operation of vehicular Global Positioning System (GPS) devices.

For example, Web-based user interfaces accept input and provide output by generating Web pages transmitted via the Internet, which are then viewed by users through Web browser programs. Different implementations are utilized to provide real-time control in a separate program, effectively abolishing the need to refresh a traditional HTML-based Web browser.

The more exciting technologies include touch interfaces, which serve as excellent examples of the public’s increasing demand to be in control of their environment and their machines. Touch interfaces are graphical user interfaces using a touch-screen display as a device for both input and output.

This insistence is becoming apparent in the automotive industry, where consumers are demanding to be well-connected and in control. Most vehicular GPS devices, for example, are touch interfaces. Steering wheel controls can also use HMI technology to keep drivers connected through different wireless and electronic apparatuses. Certain corporations are even releasing vehicles in which much of the cockpit is run by HMI technology, such as reconfigurable instrument clusters, reconfigurable head-up displays (HUD), warning systems and multifunctional controls.

The trend seems to be in fewer gauges – reducing six-gauge systems, for example, to fewer with reconfigurable displays. There may be more use of a center cockpit, touch screens and reconfigurable thin film transistor (TFT) displays in the future, as well.

A report about HMI technologies stated the importance for designers to understand that HMI determines an operator’s perception about a machine. Designers are of vital importance, it went on to say, because operators need to be able to trust the apparatus – and trust their interactions with it – in order to make the technology successful. How skillful and mindful HMI designers are in their work will, in large part, determine that. HMI empowerment will come through ease-of-use features, ease of programmability, easy understanding and clear information displays.

According to that study, a portion of the designer population still considers HMI just a tool, but many technologies with vital benefits are poised to make HMI the central command station for monitoring and control operations. This technology has the power to transform equipment into better interactive instruments.

Focus will increasingly be on the integration of hardware and software across horizontal and vertical lines, as well as on security issues associated with HMI software, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Escalating complexity and the high volume of connections requires this to be of current and future concern. Likewise, agility and portability are proving to be important trends in human-machine interaction and user experience research.

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