MSc and BSc Assignements
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Introduction - Urban Search and Rescue
In 2002, the Netherlands formed a specialized search and rescue support team that can be deployed to find, rescue and assist people in disaster areas (figure 1). The necessity of such an organization became clear after the earthquakes in Turkey and Pakistan and the fireworks explosion in Enschede. This team is known as ‘Urban Search & Rescue’, or USAR.NL, and can be deployed in the Netherlands as well as internationally.
Figure 1: USAR.NL rescuing somebody during an exercise in the Czech Republic (2008).
USAR.NL is fully self-supporting up to ten days, which makes a fast response and deployment within a 5000 km radius possible. However, deployment of the USAR.NL organization is a highly complex and dynamic process. Communication and information flow are of extreme importance during the deployment, but difficult to coordinate because different teams can work at different distant locations at the same time. This project researches the design of Human Computer Interaction tools that support these types of operations in three main areas of interest. The first area is about automatic collection of information. At the moment only voice communication is used to exchange information, but we are interested in the application of new techniques that automatically collect information that support the creation of an accurate overview picture in the command post. The second area focuses on the information that can’t be collected automatically, like important architectural information from a specialist at the rescue location. A lot of valuable information can’t be detected automatically but could be stored in an efficient way (i.e. other than voice communication). Once stored, staff members in the command post can make use of this information for the overview picture. The third area deals with the presentation and distribution of all collected data and studies the best way to present the available information to the different parties in the organization. At the moment there are three assignments within the USAR.NL project, which can all be done as bachelor (with a small group of students) or master assignment. The projects will start as soon as qualified students are found.
This project is a collaborative project of the MMI group of the Delft University of Technology and the Cognitive Systems Engineering department of TNO Human Factors. This assignment can be done at TNO Human Factors in Soesterberg, or at the University of Technology in Delft.
Assignment 1: Automatic information collection for USAR.NL The goal of this assignment is the development and testing of technology that enables the automatic collection of information in the USAR.NL domain. Possible aspects could be:
- Check in – check out of personnel. Knowing which people worked for how long is important information for the staff. Depending on the load of the teams, decisions about work planning can be made. Furthermore, the changing of teams is a very busy moment, and the check in-check out system could be a valuable tool to keep situational awareness up.
- Check in – check out of materiel. On deployment, special tools are taken along. Depending on the work a team has to do, they select equipment and take it with them. Because different teams can work on dispersed locations, it’s important knowing where all the equipment is. Furthermore, knowing how often a tool has been used and if it is still functioning correctly can be used in the maintenance process.
- Spray can. This is a device that enables digital recording of physical signs made by USAR personnel (figure 2). In this concept a connection is made between physical signs drawn on a wall with a regular spray can and its virtual representation in a digital map. In a previous phase of the project, the first steps in the design of this digitally enhanced spray can were made, consisting of a recording mechanism and digital pattern recognition system that is attached to a regular spray can. During the current assignment, a first prototype could be made.
Figure 2: USAR.NL member sprays information about the building and rescue progress on the wall. Using motion sensors and other techniques, this information is directly stored in digital format.
During your assignment you will work on:
- Generating multiple concepts of technical solutions that could be used for automatic collection of information.
- Building a prototype collector consisting of one or more of the concepts. This phase includes selection of the technical systems needed, programming of needed software and integration into a working prototype.
- Testing the prototype collector, possibly with experts in the field.
Furthermore the students should also have the following general competencies:
- Affinity with psychological human factors research
- Speak, read and write fluent English.
- Pleasant communication skills
Assignment 2: Operational Data Storage
Collection and storage of field data is an important challenge in the USAR domain. People throughout all levels of the organization need information about the progress of the deployment. However, USAR.NL rescuers have very little time while working in the field to communicate all information correctly to their staff. Furthermore, when they return on the base camp after hours of work, they are exhausted and don’t want to spend hours on debriefing. One of the major bottlenecks is how to make important field information available to other people in the organization. The goal of this assignment is to develop new intuitive ways to put important operational information into digital support systems. One of the tools that we would like to use for this purpose is an iPhone. Can the iPhone be used to communicate valuable information in digital format? Is it possible to make and send pictures and videos to the control centre of USAR.NL? Is this information usable, or should the rescue worker add information to it (figure 3)?
Figure 3: Using an iPhone to store data in the field in an easy accessible way: the rescue worker puts extra information on top of the rescue area and sends it to the control post.
During your assignment you will work on:
- Generating multiple concepts to store information in the field.
- Building a prototype consisting of one or more of the concepts. This phase includes selection of the technical systems needed, programming of needed software and integration into a working prototype.
- Testing the prototype, possibly with experts in the field.
Furthermore the students should also have the following general competencies:
- Affinity with psychological human factors research
- Speak, read and write fluent English.
- Pleasant communication skills
Assignment 3: Design of a Situational Awareness Tool The staff of USAR.NL coordinates the deployment from the control post, the central and extremely important information centre. Here, an up-to-date picture should be available at all time, but communication and information flow are hard to control in the current situation. Your assignment will be the design and evaluation of a situational awareness tool for the control post, which should provide easy accessible insight in past events, current situation and future planning of the process. To collect required information, new techniques will be used (like automatic detection of spray paint, input of movies and pictures and a check in-check out system). However, this assignment focuses on the presentation tool, not on the collection of information. Given the fact that we have all this information available, how do we present it, what do the users want? A Microsoft surface table will be available to use in the control post as an interface for the situational awareness tool (figure 4). As a subset from the tool the command post uses, you will think about ways to provide people throughout USAR.NL with the right information. For example using multiple information points throughout the deployment area with tablet PC’s or sending information to individuals using wearable personal devices like an iPhone. An important aspect of your assignment will be the involvement of experts in the design process and the expert evaluation of the final awareness tool.
Figure 4: Possible interface for a situational awareness tool.
During your assignment you will work on:
- Generating multiple concepts of a situational awareness tool that could be used in the control post of the USAR.NL organization.
- Creating subsets of the situational awareness tool to distribute information to groups or individuals throughout the deployment area of USAR.NL.
- Evaluation of the situational awareness tool and subsets with experts (possibly in the field).
Furthermore the students should also have the following general competencies:
- Affinity with psychological human factors research
- Speak, read and write fluent English.
- Pleasant communication skills
Documents
- Click here for the full assignments in pdf format.
