Automated adaptive control of display characteristics within future Air Force crew stations

The Human Effectiveness Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory is developing and evaluating human-machine interface concepts to enhance overall weapon system performance by embedding knowledge of the operator´s state inside the interface, enabling the interface to make informed, automated decisions regarding many of the interface´s information management display characteristics. Some of these characteristics may be information modality, spatial arrangement, or temporal organization. By increasing the ability of the interface to respond, or adapt, to the changing requirements of the human operator in real-time, the interface will provide information management which appears intuitive to the operator. The adaptation of display characteristics is enabled by the availability of three technologies: (1) highly flexible display devices, (2) computational models of situation awareness, workload and operator performance, and (3) direct physiologic and behavioral measurement of the operator. This paper summarizes Air Force Research Laboratory exploratory research and development efforts in the areas of multisensory switching of display modality, automated display adaptation based on behavioral metrics, and the use of operator state estimation, in conjunction with operator models, to drive display adaptation algorithms within closed-loop systems