| 1. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, et al.
(författare)
-
Design and Evaluation Study of Visual Analytics Decision Support Tools in Air Traffic Control
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Computer graphics forum (Print). - : Wiley. - 0167-7055 .- 1467-8659. ; 41:1, s. 230-242
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Operators in air traffic control facing time- and safety-critical situations call for efficient, reliable and robust real-time processing and interpretation of complex data. Automation support tools aid controllers in these processes to prevent separation losses between aircraft. Issues of current support tools include limited what-if and what-else probe functionalities in relation to vertical solutions. This work presents the design and evaluation of two visual analytics interfaces that promote contextual awareness and support what-if and what-else probes in the spatio-temporal domain aiming to improve information integration and support controllers in prioritising conflict resolution. Both interfaces visualize vertical solution spaces against a time-altitude graph. The main contributions of this paper are: (a) the presentation of two interfaces for supporting conflict solving; (b) the novel representation of how vertical information and aircraft rate of climb and descent affect conflicts and (c) an evaluation and comparison of the interfaces with a traditional air traffic control support system. The evaluation study was performed with domain experts to compare the effects of visualization concepts on operator engagement in processing solutions suggested by the tools. Results show that the visualizations support operators ability to understand and resolve conflicts. Based on the results, general design guidelines for time-critical domains are proposed.
|
|
| 2. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
Design of a Real Time Visual Analytics Support Tool for Conflict Detection and Resolution in Air Traffic Control
- 2020
-
Ingår i: EuroVis 2020 - Short Papers. - : Eurographics - European Association for Computer Graphics.
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Air traffic control is a safety critical high-risk environment where operators need to analyse and interpret traffic dynamics of spatio-temporal data in real-time. To support the air traffic controller in safely separating traffic, earlier research has applied real-time visualisation techniques that explore the constraints and solution spaces of separation problems. Traditionally, situation displays for conflict detection and resolution have used visualisations that convey information about the relative horizontal position between aircraft. Although vertical solutions for solving conflicts are common, and often a preferred among controllers, visualisations typically provide limited information about the vertical relationship between aircraft. This paper presents a design study of an interactive conflict detection and resolution support tool and explores techniques for real-time visualisation of spatio-temporal data. The design evolution has incorporated several activities, including an initial work domain analysis, iterative rounds of programming, design, and evaluations with a domain expert, and an evaluation with eight active controllers. The heading-time-altitude visualisation system is developed based on formulating and solving aircraft movements in a relative coordinate system. A polar-graph visualisation technique is used to construct a view of conflicting aircraft vertical solution spaces in the temporal domain. Using composite glyphs, the final heading-time-altitude visualisation provides a graphical representation of both horizontal and vertical solution spaces for the traffic situation.
|
|
| 3. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
Design of an Ecological Visual Analytics Interface for Operators of Time-Constant Processes
- 2023
-
Ingår i: 2023 IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS). - : IEEE. - 9798350325577 - 9798350325584 ; , s. 131-135
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In industrial applications where the physical parameters are highly interconnected, keeping the process flow steady is a major concern for the operators. This is caused by the sensitivity of system to the process dynamics. As a result, a slight adjustment to a control parameter can significantly affect the efficiency of the system and thus impact the financial gain. Paper pulp production is an example of such a process, where operators continuously investigate the potential of changes in the process and predict the consequences of an adjustment before making a decision. Process parameter adjustments prescribed by simulated control models cannot be fully trusted as the external disturbances and the process inherent variabilities cannot be fully incorporated into the simulations. Therefore, to assess the viability of a strategy, operators often compare the situation with the historical records and trends during which the processes in the plant ran steadily. While previous research has mostly focused on developing advanced control models to simulate complex pulp production process, this work aims to support operators analytical reasoning by provision of effective data visualization. The contributions of our design study include a domain problem characterization and a linked-view visual encoding design, which aims to enhance operator's mental models independent of particular users or scenarios. Finally, by reflecting on the advantages of our choice of task abstraction technique, inherited from the ecological interface design framework [5], we reason for the generalizability of our approach to similar industrial applications.
|
|
| 4. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
Exploring Effects of Ecological Visual Analytics Interfaces on Experts' and Novices' Decision‐Making Processes : A Case Study in Air Traffic Control
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Computer graphics forum (Print). - Chichester, United Kingdom : Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Inc.. - 0167-7055 .- 1467-8659. ; 41:3, s. 453-464
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Operational demands in safety-critical systems impose a risk of failure to the operators especially during urgent situations. Operators of safety-critical systems learn to make decisions effectively throughout extensive training programs and many years of experience. In the domain of air traffic control, expensive training with high dropout rates calls for research to enhance novices' ability to detect and resolve conflicts in the airspace. While previous researchers have mostly focused on redesigning training instructions and programs, the current paper explores possible benefits of novel visual representations to improve novices' understanding of the situations as well as their decision-making process. We conduct an experimental evaluation study testing two ecological visual analytics interfaces, developed in a previous study, as support systems to facilitate novice decision-making. The main contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we describe the application of an ecological interface design approach to the development of two visual analytics interfaces. Second, we perform a human-in-the-loop experiment with forty-five novices within a simplified air traffic control simulation environment. Third, by performing an expert-novice comparison we investigate the extent to which effects of the proposed interfaces can be attributed to the subjects' expertise. The results show that the proposed ecological visual analytics interfaces improved novices' understanding of the information about conflicts as well as their problem-solving performance. Further, the results show that the beneficial effects of the proposed interfaces were more attributable to the visual representations than the users' expertise.
|
|
| 5. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, 1989-, et al.
(författare)
-
Modeling and Analysis of Controller’s Taskload in Different Predictability Conditions
- 2016
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study aims to first develop a successful taskloadmodel which is able to relate the controller’s interaction with theradar screen to the dynamical changes in air traffic patterns.Secondly, the study aims to examine whether i4D equipage, as aspecific notion of automation, contributes to an improvement inquantification of controller’s taskload model. Thirdly, in a morespecific approach the study intends to analyze to what extentcontrollers may or may not benefit from predictable situations atdense traffic conditions when exposed to higher automatedairspace environment. The model is applied on 18 data setsfeaturing different i4D-equipage levels. It compares controllers’taskload for three different scenarios between an en-route and aterminal sector.
|
|
| 6. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira, 1989-
(författare)
-
Real-Time Visual Analytics Interfaces to Strengthen Human-Automation Collaboration
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Automation in today’s world supports human operators to accomplish several tasks in limited time. With more advanced automation and autonomous systems, the hu-mans’ role is shifting from hands-on operational tasks to supervisory tasks. In complex environments such as air traffic control, supervisory tasks become difficult to manage during unexpected situations as the operator needs to have a clear understanding of various resolution strategies and their consequences and make decisions about them in a limited amount of time (i.e. within a couple of minutes). In such environments, interface designers must carefully consider how information should be presented to the operators. An improper way of presenting information could, wastefully consume operators’ cognitive resources resulting in inefficient decision-making and an increased risk of failure. By designing ecological visual analytics interfaces, this thesis addresses the problem of real-time decision-making in the domain of air traffic control. The aim of this thesis has been to apply ecological design theories to the design and evaluation of visual representations to better support controllers’ analytical capabilities and decision-making. Four novel visual analytics interfaces were designed, developed, and tested over the course of this research project. To understand how the designed visual representations affected the operators’ decision-making processes, evaluation studies with air traffic controllers as well as novices without ATC experience were conducted for two of the designed interfaces and the results were analyzed. The contribution of this thesis to the field of air traffic control and visualization design is fourfold. First, the thesis contributes knowledge on what information should be visualized and how, to achieve functional goals of conflict detection and resolution task of air traffic control. Second, evolved through a series of design studies, a final interactive visual analytics interface is proposed that visualizes information about the available solution space for solving conflict situations between airborne traffic and the traffic complexity. The interface supports controllers’ decision-making process for resolving conflicts and ability to reduce the traffic complexity. Third, the method developed for evaluating the interface designs contribute with knowledge on how interfaces tailored to safety-critical systems can be tested. Fourth, findings show that the integration of ecological interface design with the development of visual representations can shape novice and expert operators’ decision-making towards domain-specific functional goals, while allowing them to follow their own problem-solving strategies.
|
|
| 7. |
- Zohrevandi, Elmira
(författare)
-
Visualization of Complex Situations to Strengthen Human-Automation Collaboration
- 2019
-
Ingår i: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 31ST EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS: DESIGN FOR COGNITION (ECCE 2019). - New York, NY, USA : ASSOC COMPUTING MACHINERY. - 9781450371667 ; , s. 14-18
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Automation in todays world has helped human operators accomplish several tasks in limited time. Therefore, humans role in automated environments are shifting from operational tasks to supervisory tasks. In complex environments such as air traffic control, supervisory tasks become difficult to manage during unforeseen situations as the controller needs to have a clear understanding of different operational levels in the system and make decisions about them in a limited amount of time. For the operators working with highly complex information-rich automated systems, an improper way of presenting the information would waste operators cognitive resources resulting in inefficient decision making and increase in risk of failure. In this research proposal goals and plans are described for doing research on design and visualization of information specifically applied to high stake automated environments. The research project initially addresses the problem in the domain of air traffic control. The contribution of the project to the field so far has been design and development of an interactive tool, which visualizes the information about conflict solution space to facilitate decision making process. The research project is planned to be completed over the course of a four-year PhD studies.
|
|
