Recommendations for enhancing the role of the auditory modality for processing sonar data

Arrabito, G. Robert; Cooke, B. E. D.; McFadden, Sharon

doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2004.11.010

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…However, a degree of caution is warranted as technological support (e.g. noise cancelling headphones) requires further investigation to examine the impact of such technology on actual task performance (Arrabito et al 2005). Moreover, the economic savings associated with reducing crew size does not always consider the wider tasks undertaken by command team operators that would still require completion (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A large number of such restrictions have been removed by engineering advancements, such as the introduction of non-hull penetrating optronics masts (Pratt 1988;Duryea et al 2008). Furthermore, the historical requirement for a separate sound room area to reduce ambient noise when processing aural data, is no longer a necessity with the development of noise cancelling technologies and waterfall displays (Arrabito et al 2005). Technological advancements such as these pave the way for new thinking in terms of control room design.…”

Section: Engineering Changementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Block off: an examination of new control room configurations and reduced crew sizes examining engineered production blocking

Stanton

Roberts

2019

Cogn Tech Work

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous research has shown a potential bottleneck of communication of information between the sonar controller (SOC) and operations officer (OPSO) in submarine sound and control rooms. This research aimed to see if this bottleneck could be removed by co-locating the sound and control room teams. Further, it also looked at the effects of reducing the crew numbers. Ten teams preformed the return to periscope depth tasks during high and low demand in a simulated submarine control room. Activities and communications of the teams were recorded and compared with data from a baseline condition of contemporary operations. The findings show that the co-location of the sound room and control room teams relieved the bottleneck of communications between the SOC and OPSO. Although communications increased, this was more balanced across team members and more relative to operational demand. This was coupled with more efficient task completion, resulting in greater number of tasks being completed by the command teams. Reduced crewing led to greater communications between the remaining members of the team together with task shedding in the higher demand condition. Future research should contrast these findings with objective measures of task performance to better understand potential performance benefits.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Engineering Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Block off: an examination of new control room configurations and reduced crew sizes examining engineered production blocking

Stanton

Roberts

2019

Cogn Tech Work

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Sonar personnel are in the sound room to reduce ambient noise as far as possible to aid aural detection. Some modern platforms have combined these rooms, such as the Canadian Victoria Class (Hunter, Hazen, and Randall 2014) or the USS Greenville (National Transportation Safety Board 2001), capitalising on sound cancellation technology in headsets to reduce interference from ambient control room noise (Arrabito, Cooke, and McFadden 2005). The co-location of all operators provides an opportunity for shared information screens that could display relevant information, potentially improving DSA.…”

Section: The Control Roommentioning

confidence: 99%

All at Sea with User Interfaces: From Evolutionary to Ecological Design for Submarine Combat Systems

Fay

Stanton

Roberts

2019

Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The quickening pace of technological advancement will require submarine command teams of the future to process greater volumes of data, potentially with fewer operators. User Interfaces (UIs) have evolved to meet current requirements, but this iterative process has propagated legacy design paradigms that may be unsuitable for future system specifications.To understand where improvements may be made, a review of current submarine control room operation is presented, using a sociotechnical systems approach. The social (command team: work, structure, and communication) and technical (combat systems) components are presented for context. An emphasis is placed on Sonar and Target Motion Analysis due to their prevalence within the control room. It was found that current UIs place increased cognitive requirements on operators due to the complexity and quantity of information presented. It is proposed that adopting an Ecological Interface Design (EID) approach could reduce such issues, facilitating effective resource allocation to manage increased data volumes. EID has been demonstrated to be effective across many domains, however, its exploitation in submarine control rooms is limited. Advances in modern submarine combat systems have promoted greater flexibility, providing an opportunity to utilise contemporary design philosophies for designing intuitive interfaces to maintain effective control room performance.The submarine control room is a complex sociotechnical system, formed of a highly trained command team and advanced combat system, with the objective of successfully completing missions in challenging environments, such as littoral waters (Roberts, Stanton, and Fay 2018).The system has evolved over time and so are highly evolved regarding operational capabilities, but this does not preclude further improvement. Technological advancements are frequently implemented without formal assessment of their impact from a sociotechnical perspective (Roberts and Stanton 2018). On submarine platforms, technological advancements are affording greater capabilities to meet changing requirements of operation (Bateman, 2011, Dominguez, Long, Miller, & Wiggins, 2006. These include new sensors and upgrades to existing sensors, producing larger volumes of data (Stillion and Clark 2015) with a drive to reduce crew sizes (Ly, Huf, and Henley 2007;Masakowski 2000). A critical question is whether such advances are being implemented with adequate consideration of the capacities of the operators, who already process large volumes of information. Of interest for potential improvements are the User Interfaces (UIs), which despite being highly advanced, have design shortcomings that limit operator performance, and the capacity of the entire control room. It is proposed that these issues could be addressed by switching from an evolutionary design paradigm to EID. Such a paradigm shift could allow future control rooms to meet future challenges and maintain effective operation.

show abstract

“…The passive sonar system is the main equipment used to identify the presence of underwater or surface targets during the submarine operations. In this context, the detection and classification of submarine threats are usually conducted by exhaustively trained operators, according to the spectral and temporal signatures observed in the passive sonar signals using the low frequency analysis and recording display [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Class‐modular multi‐layer perceptron networks for supporting passive sonar signal classification

Filho

Seixas

2016

IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recommendations for enhancing the role of the auditory modality for processing sonar data

Cited by 12 publications

References 20 publications

Block off: an examination of new control room configurations and reduced crew sizes examining engineered production blocking

Block off: an examination of new control room configurations and reduced crew sizes examining engineered production blocking

All at Sea with User Interfaces: From Evolutionary to Ecological Design for Submarine Combat Systems

Class‐modular multi‐layer perceptron networks for supporting passive sonar signal classification

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About