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Project Title:  HCAAM VNSCOR: Enabling Autonomous Crew Task Performance with Multimodal Electronic Procedure Countermeasure Reduce
Images: icon  Fiscal Year: FY 2023 
Division: Human Research 
Research Discipline/Element:
HRP HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Start Date: 04/15/2019  
End Date: 06/30/2025  
Task Last Updated: 01/25/2024 
Download report in PDF pdf
Principal Investigator/Affiliation:   Robinson, Stephen K. Ph.D. / University of California, Davis 
Address:  Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering 
1 Shields Avenue, 2132 Bainer Hall 
Davis , CA 95616-5270 
Email: stephen.k.robinson@ucdavis.edu 
Phone: 530-754-9495  
Congressional District:
Web:  
Organization Type: UNIVERSITY 
Organization Name: University of California, Davis 
Joint Agency:  
Comments:  
Co-Investigator(s)
Affiliation: 
Karasinski, John  M.S. NASA Ames Research Center 
Marquez, Jessica  Ph.D. NASA Ames Research Center 
Key Personnel Changes / Previous PI: February 2021 report: Jessica Marquez, Ph.D., is now CoInvestigator (CoI). Steven Hillenius and Richard Joyce are no longer CoIs on the project.
Project Information: Grant/Contract No. 80NSSC19K0657 
Responsible Center: NASA JSC 
Grant Monitor: Whitmire, Alexandra  
Center Contact:  
alexandra.m.whitmire@nasa.gov 
Unique ID: 12261 
Solicitation / Funding Source: 2017-2018 HERO 80JSC017N0001-BPBA Topics in Biological, Physiological, and Behavioral Adaptations to Spaceflight. Appendix C 
Grant/Contract No.: 80NSSC19K0657 
Project Type: GROUND 
Flight Program:  
TechPort: No 
No. of Post Docs:
No. of PhD Candidates:  
No. of Master's Candidates:
No. of Bachelor's Candidates:
No. of PhD Degrees:  
No. of Master's Degrees:  
No. of Bachelor's Degrees:  
Human Research Program Elements: (1) HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Human Research Program Risks: (1) HSIA:Risk of Adverse Outcomes Due to Inadequate Human Systems Integration Architecture
(2) Team:Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements Due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication, and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team
Human Research Program Gaps: (1) HSIA-201:We need to evaluate the demands of future exploration habitat/vehicle systems and mission scenarios (e.g. increased automation, multi-modal communication) on individuals and teams, and determine the risks these demands pose to crew health and performance.
(2) HSIA-401:We need to determine how HSI can be applied in the vehicle/habitat and computer interface Design Phase to mitigate potential decrements in operationally-relevant performance (e.g. problem-solving, execution procedures), during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(3) HSIA-501:We need to determine how HSI will be used in the development of dynamic and adaptive mission procedures and processes, to mitigate individual and team performance decrements during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(4) Team-105:We need to identify a set of countermeasures to support team function and enable multiple distributed teams to manage shifting levels of autonomy for all phases of increasingly earth independent, long duration exploration missions.
Flight Assignment/Project Notes: NOTE: End date changed to 06/30/2025 per A. Beitman/JSC (Ed., 8/23/23)

NOTE: End date changed to 12/23/2023 per V. Lehman/JSC and NSSC information (Ed., 7/20/23)

NOTE: End date changed to 12/31/2023 per A. Beitman/JSC (Ed., 4/17/23)

NOTE: End date changed to 4/14/2023 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/26/21)

NOTE: End date changed to 3/14/2020 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/22/2020)

Task Description: This task is part of the Human Capabilities Assessments for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) Virtual NASA Specialized Center of Research (VNSCOR).

Future long duration exploration missions (LDEM) conducted by NASA will have an increased need for crew autonomy during routine and emergency procedures, due to the increased distance from Earth causing time delays in communications. Presently, many procedures are completed with constant communication between the crewmembers and mission control personnel. This need for increased autonomy will lead to a need for more information being stored on board and accessed by crewmembers in a timely and context appropriate manner during procedural execution. Emergent technologies in multimodal interaction such as augmented reality (AR) visual displays, spatial audio, and tactile feedback are likely to play a role in mitigating this need, leading to what we define as "enhanced electronic procedures." In this proposal we outline a research study which will use a multimodal enhanced electronic procedure to determine the best tasks and cues to pair with sensory channels for procedural execution tasks. Past efforts by our group have investigated procedural tasks using new technologies such as augmented reality and haptic cues. A ground-based research study will determine the effects of crew performance, situational awareness, and trust with the use of multimodal enhanced electronic procedures compared to traditional unimodal electronic procedures. The results of the ground-based study will lead to deployment in an analog mission for validation in a flight-like environment. From the lab and analog results, we will formulate recommendations for updated standards and guidelines for multimodal interaction and electronic procedures.

Research Impact/Earth Benefits: This research aims to re-define the meaning of "procedures" for astronauts performing complex task in space.

Traditionally, procedures are static, non-responsive documents that serve as passive instructions or recipes for astronauts to follow while performing a pre-planned task. The current research adds sensors and responsive procedure-viewer technology to allow a dynamic feedback loop to aid the astronaut in being certain that the procedures are being executed correctly.

Since procedures are very common in safety-critical tasks here on Earth (operating rooms, nuclear power plants, airliners, etc.), the results of this NASA research are likely to benefit a broad range of society on Earth.

Task Progress & Bibliography Information FY2023 
Task Progress: Summary of Progress:

The HCAAM Enhanced Procedures research team has spent Year 4 supporting NASA's Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 6, with Mission 4 (of 4) just completed in March 2023. Accomplishments during this period include:

• We are utilizing a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) electrical generator as a spacecraft subsystem analog which subjects are asked to partially disassemble and then reassemble using both traditional and experimentally-enhanced procedures. During Year 4, we continued using our experiment system architecture in HERA with the Campaign 6 crews. Our experiment system is designed to serve, display, and provide interaction options for HERA crews to execute the enhanced procedures. Raspberry Pi and sensors are now built into the customized Honda generator to monitor the state of the system and feed step-specific data to the enhanced procedures.

• Enhanced Procedure Viewer - We have developed a novel Enhanced Procedure Viewer (EPV). This EPV integrates dynamic data from sensors directly into the procedure in real-time, providing the crewmember enhanced situational awareness and progress tracking. The green and red sensor data statements allow the participant to know when a step has been completed correctly, avoiding the need for them to go back later to fix a missed step. Other enhancements include on-when-needed laser indicators to highlight items on the physical generator, caution/warning statements in the procedures, and videos on complex steps to provide additional context and support for the crewmember. Navigation of the procedure via up and down arrow buttons and a moving blue step indicator help to keep track of procedure progress and reduce errors from missed steps.

• The Enhanced Procedure Viewer’s numerous features are meant to aid the user during the completion of their mechanical repair tasks.

• During the run-up to HERA Campaign 6, our project team (led by UC Davis graduate student Katie Homer) worked closely with HERA personnel to install and test our research equipment hardware and software, and then train each 4-person crew as they prepared for their 45-day mission. As tribute to the professionalism and effectiveness of the HERA engineers, our research has been very successfully deployed without a single visit to NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) by the research team.

Results:

We are currently quantifying two primary measures of subject performance – efficiency and accuracy, comparing standard vs. enhanced procedures for the complex repair task being administered in the experiment. As of March 2023, we have completed all four Missions of HERA Campaign 6.

Subject efficiency during system-repair procedure execution is assessed by logging the time spent during each step of the procedure. A significant learning effect is evident in the difference between the timescales of the first and final run-throughs. Also evident is a slight effect of improved execution time for the enhanced procedures compared to the standard procedures.

Aggregating the data from the HERA Campaign 6 Missions 1 and 2 crewmembers, we find that in general, enhanced procedures seem to result in a slight efficiency advantage over traditional procedure presentation. However, since enhanced procedures present so much additional information to the subject, we may anticipate that time savings may be minimal – what we are really looking for is enhanced accuracy with enhanced procedures, and that analysis is just starting.

Although overall conclusions cannot yet be drawn, it can be observed that subjects do not always perform more efficiently with the enhanced procedures. But for safety-critical tasks in space, accuracy is often a higher priority than efficiency – “do it once, do it right” is a common refrain in the astronaut world. For the HERA data, subject accuracy as they perform the complex repair task will be assessed via manual analysis of videos collected during each subject’s repair activities.

These data (with a limited N of subjects) suggest that both levels of procedure enhancement increase operational accuracy by significantly reducing the number of errors made during execution of the complex procedure.

Bibliography: Description: (Last Updated: 01/29/2024) 

Show Cumulative Bibliography
 
Abstracts for Journals and Proceedings Robinson S et al. "2023 Update for the Virtual NASA Specialized Center of Research (VNSCOR) – “Human Capabilities Assessments For Autonomous Missions (HCAAM)”." 2023 NASA Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshop, “To the Moon: The Next Golden Age of Human Spaceflight”, Galveston, TX, February 7-9, 2023.

Abstracts. 2023 NASA Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshop, “To the Moon: The Next Golden Age of Human Spaceflight”, Galveston, TX, February 7-9, 2023. , Feb-2023

Project Title:  HCAAM VNSCOR: Enabling Autonomous Crew Task Performance with Multimodal Electronic Procedure Countermeasure Reduce
Images: icon  Fiscal Year: FY 2022 
Division: Human Research 
Research Discipline/Element:
HRP HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Start Date: 04/15/2019  
End Date: 04/14/2023  
Task Last Updated: 05/18/2022 
Download report in PDF pdf
Principal Investigator/Affiliation:   Robinson, Stephen K. Ph.D. / University of California, Davis 
Address:  Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering 
1 Shields Avenue, 2132 Bainer Hall 
Davis , CA 95616-5270 
Email: stephen.k.robinson@ucdavis.edu 
Phone: 530-754-9495  
Congressional District:
Web:  
Organization Type: UNIVERSITY 
Organization Name: University of California, Davis 
Joint Agency:  
Comments:  
Co-Investigator(s)
Affiliation: 
Karasinski, John  M.S. NASA Ames Research Center 
Marquez, Jessica  Ph.D. NASA Ames Research Center 
Key Personnel Changes / Previous PI: February 2021 report: Jessica Marquez, Ph.D., is now CoInvestigator (CoI). Steven Hillenius and Richard Joyce are no longer CoIs on the project.
Project Information: Grant/Contract No. 80NSSC19K0657 
Responsible Center: NASA JSC 
Grant Monitor: Whitmire, Alexandra  
Center Contact:  
alexandra.m.whitmire@nasa.gov 
Unique ID: 12261 
Solicitation / Funding Source: 2017-2018 HERO 80JSC017N0001-BPBA Topics in Biological, Physiological, and Behavioral Adaptations to Spaceflight. Appendix C 
Grant/Contract No.: 80NSSC19K0657 
Project Type: GROUND 
Flight Program:  
TechPort: No 
No. of Post Docs:
No. of PhD Candidates:  
No. of Master's Candidates:
No. of Bachelor's Candidates:
No. of PhD Degrees:  
No. of Master's Degrees:  
No. of Bachelor's Degrees:  
Human Research Program Elements: (1) HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Human Research Program Risks: (1) HSIA:Risk of Adverse Outcomes Due to Inadequate Human Systems Integration Architecture
(2) Team:Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements Due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication, and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team
Human Research Program Gaps: (1) HSIA-201:We need to evaluate the demands of future exploration habitat/vehicle systems and mission scenarios (e.g. increased automation, multi-modal communication) on individuals and teams, and determine the risks these demands pose to crew health and performance.
(2) HSIA-401:We need to determine how HSI can be applied in the vehicle/habitat and computer interface Design Phase to mitigate potential decrements in operationally-relevant performance (e.g. problem-solving, execution procedures), during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(3) HSIA-501:We need to determine how HSI will be used in the development of dynamic and adaptive mission procedures and processes, to mitigate individual and team performance decrements during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(4) Team-105:We need to identify a set of countermeasures to support team function and enable multiple distributed teams to manage shifting levels of autonomy for all phases of increasingly earth independent, long duration exploration missions.
Flight Assignment/Project Notes: NOTE: End date changed to 4/14/2023 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/26/21)

NOTE: End date changed to 3/14/2020 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/22/2020)

Task Description: This task is part of the Human Capabilities Assessments for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) Virtual NASA Specialized Center of Research (VNSCOR).

Future long duration exploration missions (LDEM) conducted by NASA will have an increased need for crew autonomy during routine and emergency procedures, due to the increased distance from Earth causing time delays in communications. Presently, many procedures are completed with constant communication between the crewmembers and mission control personnel. This need for increased autonomy will lead to a need for more information being stored on board and accessed by crewmembers in a timely and context appropriate manner during procedural execution. Emergent technologies in multimodal interaction such as augmented reality (AR) visual displays, spatial audio, and tactile feedback are likely to play a role in mitigating this need, leading to what we define as "enhanced electronic procedures." In this proposal we outline a research study which will use a multimodal enhanced electronic procedure to determine the best tasks and cues to pair with sensory channels for procedural execution tasks. Past efforts by our group have investigated procedural tasks using new technologies such as augmented reality and haptic cues. A ground-based research study will determine the effects of crew performance, situational awareness, and trust with the use of multimodal enhanced electronic procedures compared to traditional unimodal electronic procedures. The results of the ground-based study will lead to deployment in an analog mission for validation in a flight-like environment. From the lab and analog results, we will formulate recommendations for updated standards and guidelines for multimodal interaction and electronic procedures.

Research Impact/Earth Benefits: This research aims to re-define the meaning of "procedures" for astronauts performing complex task in space.

Traditionally, procedures are static, non-responsive documents that serve as passive instructions or recipes for astronauts to follow while performing a pre-planned task. The current research adds sensors and responsive procedure-viewer technology to allow a dynamic feedback loop to aid the astronaut in being certain that the procedures are being executed correctly.

Since procedures are very common in safety-critical tasks here on Earth (operating rooms, nuclear power plants, airliners, etc.), the results of this NASA research are likely to benefit a broad range of society on Earth.

Task Progress & Bibliography Information FY2022 
Task Progress: Introduction:

Astronaut crews on deep-space missions will not have real-time support from ground experts, so they must have access to procedures (especially for critical operations and malfunction recovery) that are enhanced beyond the traditional text-on-page, to reduce procedure deviations or execution errors.

To address this important issue, University of California Davis (UC Davis) and NASA Ames Research Center have teamed up to form a unique and creative research collaboration. The Human Capabilities Assessments for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) / Multimodal Electronic Procedures project is a collaboration between researchers in the Human/Robotics/Vehicle Integration and Performance (HRVIP) Lab at UC Davis and in the Human Systems Integration Division at NASA Ames Research Center.

Astronauts currently complete tasks with PDF procedures and often with assistance from personnel at a Mission Control Center (MCC). Because of the increased distance from Earth in future long-duration exploration missions (LDEMs), there will be significant delays in communication. This leads to a need for increased autonomy which can be achieved by storing more information on board in such a way that it may be accessed by crewmembers in a timely and context-appropriate manner during routine and emergency procedures. Our aim is to use emerging technologies including the “Internet of Things” (IoT) and multimodal interactions such as augmented reality (AR) visual displays to generate interactive instructions that provide real-time feedback to astronauts when completing complex manual repair tasks.

Project Objectives:

We are experimentally testing the hypothesis that adding sensors to spacecraft systems to report procedure and system status to the astronaut will improve execution accuracy, and therefore enhance the safety of the long-duration crew. We eventually intend to enhance procedures by communicating information to the astronaut via sensory channels in addition to traditional reading of text; examples are visually enhanced procedures and augmented reality visual overlays.

Progress as of April 2022:

We are quantifying two primary measures of subject performance – efficiency and accuracy, comparing standard vs. enhanced procedures for the complex repair task being administered in the experiment. So far, we have received and conducted preliminary efficiency analyses of the data from the first two crews of the NASA Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 6.

Aggregating the data from HERA Campaign 6 Missions 1 and 2 crewmembers, we find that, in general, enhanced procedures seem to result in a slight efficiency advantage over traditional procedure presentation. However, since enhanced procedures present so much additional information to the subject, we may anticipate that time savings may be minimal – what we are really looking for is enhanced accuracy with enhanced procedures, and that analysis is just starting.

Although overall conclusions cannot yet be drawn, it can be observed that subjects do not always perform more efficiently with the enhanced procedures. But for safety-critical tasks in space, accuracy is often a higher priority than efficiency – “do it once, do it right” is a common refrain in the astronaut world. For the HERA data, subject accuracy in performing the complex repair task will be assessed via manual analysis of videos collected during each subject’s repair activities.

Bibliography: Description: (Last Updated: 01/29/2024) 

Show Cumulative Bibliography
 
 None in FY 2022
Project Title:  HCAAM VNSCOR: Enabling Autonomous Crew Task Performance with Multimodal Electronic Procedure Countermeasure Reduce
Images: icon  Fiscal Year: FY 2021 
Division: Human Research 
Research Discipline/Element:
HRP HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Start Date: 04/15/2019  
End Date: 04/14/2023  
Task Last Updated: 02/17/2021 
Download report in PDF pdf
Principal Investigator/Affiliation:   Robinson, Stephen K. Ph.D. / University of California, Davis 
Address:  Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering 
1 Shields Avenue, 2132 Bainer Hall 
Davis , CA 95616-5270 
Email: stephen.k.robinson@ucdavis.edu 
Phone: 530-754-9495  
Congressional District:
Web:  
Organization Type: UNIVERSITY 
Organization Name: University of California, Davis 
Joint Agency:  
Comments:  
Co-Investigator(s)
Affiliation: 
Karasinski, John  M.S. NASA Ames Research Center 
Marquez, Jessica  Ph.D. NASA Ames Research Center 
Key Personnel Changes / Previous PI: February 2021 report: Jessica Marquez, Ph.D., is now CoInvestigator (CoI). Steven Hillenius and Richard Joyce are no longer CoIs on the project.
Project Information: Grant/Contract No. 80NSSC19K0657 
Responsible Center: NASA JSC 
Grant Monitor: Whitmire, Alexandra  
Center Contact:  
alexandra.m.whitmire@nasa.gov 
Unique ID: 12261 
Solicitation / Funding Source: 2017-2018 HERO 80JSC017N0001-BPBA Topics in Biological, Physiological, and Behavioral Adaptations to Spaceflight. Appendix C 
Grant/Contract No.: 80NSSC19K0657 
Project Type: GROUND 
Flight Program:  
TechPort: No 
No. of Post Docs:
No. of PhD Candidates:
No. of Master's Candidates:
No. of Bachelor's Candidates:
No. of PhD Degrees:
No. of Master's Degrees:  
No. of Bachelor's Degrees:  
Human Research Program Elements: (1) HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Human Research Program Risks: (1) HSIA:Risk of Adverse Outcomes Due to Inadequate Human Systems Integration Architecture
(2) Team:Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements Due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication, and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team
Human Research Program Gaps: (1) HSIA-201:We need to evaluate the demands of future exploration habitat/vehicle systems and mission scenarios (e.g. increased automation, multi-modal communication) on individuals and teams, and determine the risks these demands pose to crew health and performance.
(2) HSIA-401:We need to determine how HSI can be applied in the vehicle/habitat and computer interface Design Phase to mitigate potential decrements in operationally-relevant performance (e.g. problem-solving, execution procedures), during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(3) HSIA-501:We need to determine how HSI will be used in the development of dynamic and adaptive mission procedures and processes, to mitigate individual and team performance decrements during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(4) Team-105:We need to identify a set of countermeasures to support team function and enable multiple distributed teams to manage shifting levels of autonomy for all phases of increasingly earth independent, long duration exploration missions.
Flight Assignment/Project Notes: NOTE: End date changed to 4/14/2023 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/26/21)

NOTE: End date changed to 3/14/2020 per NSSC information (Ed., 1/22/2020)

Task Description: This task is part of the Human Capabilities Assessments for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) Virtual NASA Specialized Center of Research (VNSCOR).

Future long duration exploration missions (LDEM) conducted by NASA will have an increased need for crew autonomy during routine and emergency procedures, due to the increased distance from Earth causing time delays in communications. Presently, many procedures are completed with constant communication between the crewmembers and mission control personnel. This need for increased autonomy will lead to a need for more information being stored on board and accessed by crewmembers in a timely and context appropriate manner during procedural execution. Emergent technologies in multimodal interaction such as augmented reality (AR) visual displays, spatial audio, and tactile feedback are likely to play a role in mitigating this need, leading to what we define as "enhanced electronic procedures." In this proposal we outline a research study which will use a multimodal enhanced electronic procedure to determine the best tasks and cues to pair with sensory channels for procedural execution tasks. Past efforts by our group have investigated procedural tasks using new technologies such as augmented reality and haptic cues. A ground-based research study will determine the effects of crew performance, situational awareness, and trust with the use of multimodal enhanced electronic procedures compared to traditional unimodal electronic procedures. The results of the ground-based study will lead to deployment in an analog mission for validation in a flight-like environment. From the lab and analog results, we will formulate recommendations for updated standards and guidelines for multimodal interaction and electronic procedures.

Research Impact/Earth Benefits: This research aims to re-define the meaning of "procedures" for astronauts performing complex task in space.

Traditionally, procedures are static, non-responsive documents that serve as passive instructions or recipes for astronauts to follow while performing a pre-planned task. The current research adds sensors and responsive procedure-viewer technology to allow a dynamic feedback loop to aid the astronaut in being certain that the procedures are being executed correctly.

Since procedures are very common in safety-critical tasks here on Earth (operating rooms, nuclear power plants, airliners, etc.), the results of this NASA research are likely to benefit a broad range of society on Earth.

Task Progress & Bibliography Information FY2021 
Task Progress: Materials, Methods, and Accomplishments: The HCAAM Enhanced Procedures research team has spent Year 1&2 preparing for Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign 6, now scheduled to launch in September 2021. Accomplishments include:

• We are utilizing a COTS (commercial off the shelf) electrical generator as a spacecraft subsystem analog which subjects are asked to partially disassemble and then reassemble using both traditional and experimentally-enhanced procedures. During Year 1&2, we finalized our experiment system architecture for serving, displaying, and interacting with the enhanced procedure viewer. Raspberry Pi and sensors are now built into the customized Honda generator to monitor the state of the system and feed step-specific data to the enhanced procedures.

• Enhanced Procedure Viewer -- We have developed a novel Enhanced Procedure Viewer (EPV). This EPV integrates dynamic data from sensors directly into the procedure in real time, providing the crewmember enhanced situational awareness and progress tracking. The green and red sensor data statements allow the participant to know when a step has been completed correctly, avoiding the need for them to go back later to fix a missed step. Other enhancements include on-when-needed laser indicators to highlight items on the physical generator, caution/warning statements in the procedures, and videos on complex steps to provide additional context and support for the crewmember. Navigation of the procedure via up and down arrow buttons and a moving blue step indicator help to keep track of procedure progress and reduce errors from missed steps.

• Despite severe pandemic limitations for working in team settings or traveling, Year 1&2 has seen the Multimodal team and the NASA HERA support team work closely together to prepare for Campaign 6. At this point, two fully-modified generators have been shipped to NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), have been assembled per a detailed assembly guide that we produced, and have been tested by HERA support engineers while on zoom calls with University of California (UC) Davis research staff. We also have a third modified generator at UC Davis ready to be shipped to HERA after planned pilot studies are complete, prior to Campaign 6.

Results: A series of small-scale pilot studies have been conducted at UC Davis during the development of the sensorized spaceflight analogs and the new Enhanced Procedure Viewer. As an example of the type of data output from the EPV execution log, we can plot the elapsed time spent on each step of the procedure.

Discussion: Pandemic-related schedule delays for the start of HERA Campaign 6 have actually been beneficial to the anticipated scientific value of the Multimodal HCAAM experiment. We have been able to use the extra time to run additional cycles of the design/test process for the IoT sensor system and the Enhanced Procedure Viewer.

Next Steps: Year 3 will see additional preparation steps plus execution of the first two missions of HERA Campaign 6, starting in September 2021. These steps include:

• Since our HERA experiment design combines four different factors in the enhancement of the generator procedures, we will conduct four human-subject experiment pilot studies at UC Davis to consider the relative influence of each of these factors alone, plus a control study with no procedure enhancements. Each study will include 16-20 subjects and will be conducted at UC Davis using detailed no-contact experimental protocols that we have developed for Covid safety. We anticipate that the control experiment plus two of the four single-effect experiments will be completed during Year 3. (These experiments are not required to be complete prior to Campaign 6, but will be necessary to analyze crew data collected in HERA.)

• Although we will have three identical experimental spacecraft analogs (modified generators) at HERA during Campaign 6, we are developing a plan to replace, repair, and re-introduce generators as sensor systems fail. This plan will utilize NASA JSC interns as repair volunteers, trained and supervised by current UC Davis students.

• With the recent announcement of the slip of Campaign 6 to September 2021, we are rebuilding our logistics support plan for funding, travel, and balancing student research responsibilities with the demands of coursework and required academic projects.

• Of course, our primary objective during Year 3 is the collecting and analyzing C6 experimental data.

Bibliography: Description: (Last Updated: 01/29/2024) 

Show Cumulative Bibliography
 
 None in FY 2021
Project Title:  HCAAM VNSCOR: Enabling Autonomous Crew Task Performance with Multimodal Electronic Procedure Countermeasure Reduce
Images: icon  Fiscal Year: FY 2019 
Division: Human Research 
Research Discipline/Element:
HRP HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Start Date: 04/15/2019  
End Date: 01/14/2020  
Task Last Updated: 03/29/2019 
Download report in PDF pdf
Principal Investigator/Affiliation:   Robinson, Stephen K. Ph.D. / University of California, Davis 
Address:  Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering 
1 Shields Avenue, 2132 Bainer Hall 
Davis , CA 95616-5270 
Email: stephen.k.robinson@ucdavis.edu 
Phone: 530-754-9495  
Congressional District:
Web:  
Organization Type: UNIVERSITY 
Organization Name: University of California, Davis 
Joint Agency:  
Comments:  
Co-Investigator(s)
Affiliation: 
Hillenius, Steven  M.S. NASA Ames Research Center 
Joyce, Richard  Ph.D. San Jose State University Research Foundation 
Karasinski, John  M.S. NASA Ames Research Center 
Project Information: Grant/Contract No. 80NSSC19K0657 
Responsible Center: NASA JSC 
Grant Monitor: Williams, Thomas  
Center Contact: 281-483-8773 
thomas.j.will1@nasa.gov 
Unique ID: 12261 
Solicitation / Funding Source: 2017-2018 HERO 80JSC017N0001-BPBA Topics in Biological, Physiological, and Behavioral Adaptations to Spaceflight. Appendix C 
Grant/Contract No.: 80NSSC19K0657 
Project Type: GROUND 
Flight Program:  
TechPort: No 
No. of Post Docs:  
No. of PhD Candidates:  
No. of Master's Candidates:  
No. of Bachelor's Candidates:  
No. of PhD Degrees:  
No. of Master's Degrees:  
No. of Bachelor's Degrees:  
Human Research Program Elements: (1) HFBP:Human Factors & Behavioral Performance (IRP Rev H)
Human Research Program Risks: (1) HSIA:Risk of Adverse Outcomes Due to Inadequate Human Systems Integration Architecture
(2) Team:Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements Due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication, and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team
Human Research Program Gaps: (1) HSIA-201:We need to evaluate the demands of future exploration habitat/vehicle systems and mission scenarios (e.g. increased automation, multi-modal communication) on individuals and teams, and determine the risks these demands pose to crew health and performance.
(2) HSIA-401:We need to determine how HSI can be applied in the vehicle/habitat and computer interface Design Phase to mitigate potential decrements in operationally-relevant performance (e.g. problem-solving, execution procedures), during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(3) HSIA-501:We need to determine how HSI will be used in the development of dynamic and adaptive mission procedures and processes, to mitigate individual and team performance decrements during increasingly earth-independent, future exploration missions (including in-mission and at landing).
(4) Team-105:We need to identify a set of countermeasures to support team function and enable multiple distributed teams to manage shifting levels of autonomy for all phases of increasingly earth independent, long duration exploration missions.
Task Description: This task is part of the Human Capabilities Assessments for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) Virtual NASA Specialized Center of Research (VNSCOR).

Future long duration exploration missions (LDEM) conducted by NASA will have an increased need for crew autonomy during routine and emergency procedures, due to the increased distance from Earth causing time delays in communications. Presently, many procedures are completed with constant communication between the crewmembers and mission control personnel. This need for increased autonomy will lead to a need for more information being stored on board and accessed by crewmembers in a timely and context appropriate manner during procedural execution. Emergent technologies in multimodal interaction such as augmented reality (AR) visual displays, spatial audio, and tactile feedback are likely to play a role in mitigating this need, leading to what we define as "enhanced electronic procedures." In this proposal we outline a research study which will use a multimodal enhanced electronic procedure to determine the best tasks and cues to pair with sensory channels for procedural execution tasks. Past efforts by our group have investigated procedural tasks using new technologies such as augmented reality and haptic cues. A ground-based research study will determine the effects of crew performance, situational awareness, and trust with the use of multimodal enhanced electronic procedures compared to traditional unimodal electronic procedures. The results of the ground-based study will lead to deployment in an analog mission for validation in a flight-like environment. From the lab and analog results, we will formulate recommendations for updated standards and guidelines for multimodal interaction and electronic procedures.

Research Impact/Earth Benefits:

Task Progress & Bibliography Information FY2019 
Task Progress: New project for FY2019.

Bibliography: Description: (Last Updated: 01/29/2024) 

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 None in FY 2019