HMI Lab

Research areas

1. Innovative workplace for aviation operators

The laboratory offers the possibility to simulate operational concepts and workplaces in a simplified way in the early phases of their development. These include workstations that enable collaborative decision-making in airport management and flight guidance, virtual and augmented reality systems to support operators, but also a flexible cockpit simulator with touch displays. The focus here is on being able to quickly test novel concepts with human operators. It also allows to record the effect of these concepts, or components of the concepts, on the operator and performance. These results form a decision-making basis for further developments at the Institute.

2. Recording the condition of operators and their performance

When designing and evaluating highly automated or fully automated work environments, the effects on human cognition must be taken into account. For this reason, methods for recording and evaluating cognitive processes are being tested in the HMI Lab, which can be used in field trials or in operational use if suitable. These include eye movement measurement, EEG, fNIRS and so-called "wearables" for assessing metrics such as the heart rate.

Technical background

The HMI Lab is a highly flexible facility for answering fundamental questions about interaction in studies conducted together with laypersons and experts. The structure of the lab is divided into different functional areas:

• An area for collaborative work processes with eight computer workstations makes it possible to test several participants simultaneously in studies in a time-efficient manner. Collaborative decision-making situations can be simulated and examined here. With the help of partition walls, spatially separated multi-team systems can also be realized.
• A usability and eye movement measurement section contains infrastructure to specifically assess the usability of redesigned displays and perform non-contact eye movement measurements.
• A third area in the HMI Lab is the cockpit simulator iSIM with touch-input displays, which can map all cockpit displays and controls and allows researchers to easily change and expand the displays and controls. The low-fidelity simulation of a cockpit is particularly suitable for early phases of the development of new displays and new design concepts, for example on the possible use of mobile devices or virtual reality / augmented reality in the cockpit.
• Depending on requirements and the focus of the study, an experimental supervisor's workstation and a debriefing area can also be set up flexibly. This allows experiments to be controlled and debriefed directly afterwards.

Measuring cognitive processes

Using various measuring instruments and methodologies, cognitive and physiological parameters can be recorded in the HMI Lab to draw conclusions about the state of the person and their performance: Are they exhausted? Overstrained? Or bored? Such measurements can be faster and more accurate than mere observations of performance and more objective than self-reports. Small, lightweight and portable devices allow for use in laboratory contexts as well as in realistic studies.

The following methods are used individually or even in combination in the HMI Lab: