Please welcome Ph.D. students Sanaz Goldani (OR) and Wenjuan Zhang (ISE) as they present their research. Goldani will share how her research will improve the way we will handle disaster relief in the future. Zhang will discuss how her research is enhancing the transparency of automated systems and thereby simplifying the understanding of complex systems.
As always refreshments are available in 428 Daniels Hall 30 minutes before the seminar begins.
Bi-objective Maximal-covering Minimal-tour Problem with Applications in Disaster Relief
The Bi-objective Maximal-covering Minimum-tour Problem (BCTP) is defined on a graph G = (V⋃W, E), where W is a set of vertices associated with the demand. The BCTP aims at determining a Hamiltonian cycle on a subset of V so as to simultaneously minimize the cycle length and the total uncovered demand. A demand is covered if its associated vertex lies within a pre-specified distance from a vertex of the cycle. The problem is formulated as a bi-objective IP and a branch-andcut algorithm is proposed to solve this problem in the context of the Ԑconstraint method
Utility of Automation Transparency in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Control Interface Design
A basic notion of transparency in automated systems design is the need to support user tracking and understanding of system states. Many usability principles for complex systems design implicitly target the concept of transparency. In this study, we made comparison of a “baseline” control interface mimicking an existing available UAV ground control station with an “enhanced” interface designed with improved functional transparency and usability, and a “degraded” interface which removed important design features. Results revealed participants using the enhanced interface to produce significantly faster task completion times and greater accuracy across all UAV control tasks. The enhanced features were also found to promote operator understanding of the system and mitigate workload. By defining and setting automation transparency as an overarching design objective and identifying specific transparency and usability issues within existing ground control station designs, we were able to design and prototype an enhanced interface that more effectively supported human-automation interaction.
