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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

photo of Raza Waraich

Monday, April 14, 2014 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Raza Waraich

"Minimizing Human Factors Mishaps in Unmanned Aircraft Systems"

ABSTRACT -- Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) mishaps attributable to lack of attention to human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) science in their ground control stations (GCSes) are alarmingly high. The ANSI/HFES 100-2007 human factors standard is proposed as a specification for the design of UASes because of the similarity between general-purpose computer workstations and GCSes. Data were collected from 20 UASes to determine the applicability of commercial standards to GCS designs. Analysis shows that general-purpose computer workstations and UAS GCSes are up to 98% similar. Therefore, our findings suggest that the application of commercial human factors standards may be a good solution for minimizing UAS mishaps.

SPEAKER -- Raza Waraich has earned his PhD in systems engineering from George Washington University. He has more than 10 years of experience working with numerous U.S. Department of Defense unmanned aircraft systems (UASes). He manages a team of human factors engineers to ensure UAS ground control stations (GCSes) are ergonomically designed for operators. He has also designed UAS payloads and their corresponding GCSes. He is a contributing member of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) and has submitted numerous publications in its journals. He is a stern advocate of student UAS research for which he has organized and judged AUVSI student competitions since 2005. He has presented in several local and international Human Factors conferences. He is an honorary member of Human Factors In Control Society of Norway, where he has received commendations for his work for future of human factors in unmanned/autonomous systems.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov