Sensor Noise and Ecological Interface Design: Effects on Operators' Control Performance

Abstract

We studied the impact of sensor noise on operators' control performance using an Ecological Interface Design (EID) display with a representative thermal-hydraulic process simulation. A number of studies have shown that EID improves the performance of operators. However, no studies have assessed the effects of the presence and magnitude of sensor noise on interfaces based on EID. We hypothesized that as the magnitude of sensor noise would increase, performance would worsen for both EID and non-EID operators, although performance of the EID group would not be worse than that of the non-EID group. Our results show that EID participants performed significantly better than non-EID participants when dealing with industry representative sensor noise. When the magnitude of sensor noise was randomly increased, no differences were observed between the two groups. These results have important consequences for the applicability of the EID framework in industrial settings.