Human supervisory control in virtual environments

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Transport)
Not Energy Related
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor N Stanton
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton

Standard

ESRC

16 January 1998

15 January 2000

24 months

£93,691

No relevance to Underpinning Sectors

South East

ESRC Energy

Professor N Stanton, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton

Objectives not supplied

This research aims to investigate the social interactions of people working together in a virtual environment. It also aims to investigate the manner in which information may be represented within this environment. The focus of the research will be upon the collaborative working in an energy transportation system. Virtual working environments could negate the need to physically centralise personnel as they could work remotely from each other as well as remotely from the plant they are supervising. However, virtual systems may introduce new kinds of problems, such as overwhelming the operator with information. In short, we might simply be replacing one set of problems with another. It has been suggested that the wealth of information might be more manageable by functional representation techniques. Given that the energy transportation system could be represented both physically and functionally, it will be important to explore the nature of interactions between control room engineerswith both systems and compare the data with conventional control systems. Whilst virtual environments offer the potential for physical remoteness to be overcome there is the potential risk of the social consequences associated with the diffusion of responsibility if the control room engineers are not working in the same physical environment.

10/11/09