Frontiers Lecture Series 
Human Factors Engineering
Why it Matters and Some Recent Research on Driver Distraction
All are invited to attend
ABSTRACT:
The first part of the presentation concerns what human factors engineering is, presents examples of contemporary problems, and presents arguments as to why a course in human factors engineering should be required of all engineers. In brief, the arguments are based on the need for technology to be human-centered, and because many of the grand future engineering challenges have human aspects to them. Part two of this presentation covers an example of recent human factors research conducted by the author, an overview of recent studies conducted by his team on the SAVE-IT project, a federally funded project to mitigate the effects of driver distraction. Summarized will be (1) a scheme to characterize the visual, auditory, cognitive, and psychomotor demands of real in-vehicle tasks, (2) summaries of the frequency of in-vehicle tasks, (3) a "kitchen sink" evaluation that identify the extent to which factors contribute to driver workload, and (4) findings from a comprehensive experiment that led to equations that reliably predict driver workload in real time. Thus, this research provides methods and equations to reliably quantify both the demands of in-vehicle tasks and the driving task. The long-term goal is to create a workload manager, that in real-time can determine how busy the driver is, what it is recommended for the driver to do, and what information should be available to the driver. The workload manager will be used to control access to navigation, phone, and other systems, as well as the scheduling of reminders and warnings. |
