University of Iowa’s Operator Performance Laboratory Demo
Wednesday, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

As a special event for the DASC’s students and regular attendees, Dr. Tom Schnell and his students will present a recent demonstration made by their group at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC).  The OPL demo will involve the Quality of Training Effectiveness Assessment tool that uses neural imaging and physiological sensors to describe the state of naval aviator trainees.

Dr. Schnell is Director of the Operator Performance Laboratory (OPL), which operates a flight operations research hangar at the Iowa City Municipal Airport (KIOW). The flight ops hosts the Computerized Airborne Research Platform (CARP), an A36 Bonanza, the 737 simulator, the Bonanza simulator, the instrumented Lexus, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) simulator, and the electronics and mechanical workshops.  OPL recently acquired an Aero Vodochody L-29 for high dynamics flight research.

In addition, the OPL operates a number of flight simulators. The 737 simulator at the OPL flight ops provides a test bed for commercial and large business jet platforms. The GAWS simulator simulates General Aviation aircraft. The Rotorcraft simulator located at the Engineering Research Facility (ERF) acts as a rotory-wing simulation facility complete with brown-out capability.

An important part of training is assessment and feedback. Schnell notes that conventional testing uses estimated, subjective data to assess the cognitive workload and situation awareness of trainees. The subjective assessments are often biased or even inaccurate and can be difficult to use in real-time. By comparison, the OPL test uses data from neurophysiological and physiological sensors in combination with mission data to gain a fuller picture of training effectiveness. The sensors include a remote-mounted eye tracker, a dense array electroencephalogram (EEG) system, a facial temperature sensor, a respiration sensor, a heart monitor, galvanic skin response, body temperature, and pulse oxygenation. Other measures such as functional near Infrared and hemodynamics measures are in the works. Schnell added that the OPL test is well suited for use in non-aviation applications. Examples of such uses might include intensive care patient monitoring, biometrics, crew station design, and adaptive automation.

"This will save money because training times will be reduced, possibly by as much as 50 percent. Using this real-time data, training scenarios can optimally adapt their intensity to maximize the effectiveness of learning and the fidelity of training systems can be tuned to optimize cost-effectiveness trade-offs," says Schnell.

Please join us Wednesday evening for this special event.