Man-machine Interface System Research Articles

Integrated Validation of Man Machine Interface and Control System for a Combined Cycles Plant

The traditional Control Room evolution through Computer Aided solutions is growing together with the design/construction of new kind of plants, like the Combined Cycles and the Fluid Bed.The Constructions and Research & Development ENEL Directions have realized a Combined Cycles/Gas Turbine simulator that allows the full design of the main automation systems to validate the command/control functionalities by a computer aided MMI, one for all the plant systems, despite of the present Control Rooms.To verify such operator interface unification, the control system and subsystems of the real-time simulator is implemented by a real kind of industrial control system, with an advanced operator interface, based on process keyboards and graphic touch-screens.

Interactive data input system for the 3-D finite element method with superior man-machine interfaces

The 3-D finite element method is a powerful numerical analysis tool, but one of its disadvantages is the trouble in constructing finite elements, usually tetrahedrons being used. Even though automatic element generation methods have already been developed which can be used for dividing an analysis field into tetrahedra, analyst still have to feed in data such as shapes, dimensions, and positions of objects. As these data are 3-D data, drawing up and feeding them is troublesome for the analysts, and such operations easily cause data errors. Therefore the construction of a superior man-machine interface system for data input is required: an interactive data input system implemented on a graphics work station, which puts in 3-D data types without any difficulty or error, is proposed.

Providing Decision Support in Westinghouse Nuclear Power Plant Man-Machine Interface Systems

One of the primary goals of the nuclear power plant Man-Machine Interface System (MMIS) designer is to build an MMIS where the human and the machine truly complement each other to produce an integrated system. Attainment of this goal requires a well defined, rigorous design process which provides a mechanism to define the specific operational tasks to be supported, an effective allocation of these tasks between the human and machine components of the design, and a complete set of requirements for the MMIS. In the Westinghouse MMIS design process these activities are grouped together under the title of Function Based Task Analysis (FBTA). This paper describes the basis for the FBTA approach and the implementation methodology employed in the design of a modern nuclear power plant control room.

Supervision and Fault Diagnosis for the Safe Operation of Nuclear Power Plants

In many countries nuclear power plants play an important role in the electrical power supply. Great efforts have been made by the plant designers and the utilities to fulfill the high requirements for safety, i. e. to guarantee a reliable and safe operation of the plants. Based on well-thought concepts and successful further developments a high level of automation - including a defence-in-depth concept of control, limitations and protection - was applied and highly advanced plant instrumentation and man-machine interface systems could be provided for the operators in the last years. New developments for supervision and fault detection are meanwhile available in modern nuclear power plants, which will certainly contribute to further improvement in operational safety. Taking German pressurized water reactors as an example, the present state of application of new methods and systems is presented and discussed.

シンセサイザシステムにおけるマン・マシンインタフェースに関する研究

The present paper concerns a man-machine interface system for realizing the communication of a rather difficult information, which is unable to represent by the numerical method, such as an emotion of the artist. Since the emotion is expressed by action rather than word, the pattern of the tact movement for conducting synthesizer has been controlled by constructing the detecting and processing systems in real time. The tact, which is the most important input device has been made with high sensitivity of variation of speed without any effect from the swing directions, range and speed. The processing system has the sensitivity for detecting the degree of skillfulness, and then by using this parameter, the present system can conduct the synthesizer in the best condition corresponding to individual operators.

Application of Knowledge Information Technology to Nuclear Power Plants

This paper reviews contributions in the application of knowledge information technology to nuclear power plants with emphasis on case descriptions of knowledge-based system development in three major application domains; design and planning, operation and maintenance, and man- machine interface. Knowledge-based systems referred to are a plant layout CAD system, a maintenance work scheduling system, and a man-machine interface system.

On some Aspects for Developing Computer Aided Teaching (CAT) Software Package A Description of CAT Software Package for Control System Design and Analysis (CATCS)

The necessity and possibility for developing computer aided teaching software package are mentioned first. A software package for computer aided teaching of control system analysis and design (CATCS) developed by the authors is introduced. The structure of this package has been shown briefly and its functions are listed. Powerful man machine interface and menu driven system are discussed. The structure programming and top down analysis technique are special noticed. Having run for a couple of years, it has been shown that this software package is helpful.

The User Interface Design Environment

The user-computer interface is often the major impediment to successful use of interactive computer graphics systems. Design of the interface is often thought of as art rather than science, and suffers from lack of formalisms, models, tools, and methodical design approaches. Slowly, the design process is becoming more structured, and more formal tools are becoming available.This paper describes the User Interface Design Environment (VIDE), a knowledge-based system to assist in user interface design and implementation. At the heart of UIDE is a representation of the conceptual design of a user interface. This design includes: the class hierarchy of objects which exist in the system (only single inheritance is currently supported), properties of the objects, actions which can be performed on the objects, units of information required by the actions, and pre- and post-conditions for the actions. The conceptual design and related information is used to: check the interface design for consistency and completeness via the Knowledge Acquisition In a Man-machine Interface system (KAIMI), transform the knowledge base, and hence the user interface it represents into a different but functionally-equivalent interface via the Transformation Algorithms system (TA), evaluate the interface design with respect to speed of use, with the keystroke Analysis Tool as input to a Simple User Interface Management System (SUIMS) which implements the user interface, automatically generate intelligent run-time help to the end-user via the Help Support system (HS), and produce a printed description of the design in the Interface Definition Language (IDL). IDL has been developed to present the conceptual design of the user interface in a structured and readable representation.UIDE goes beyond the capabilities of the typical User Interface Management System (UIMS), which requires the designer to work at the syntactic and lexical levels of design and hence to focus on command names, screen and icon design, menu organization, sequencing rules, and interaction techniques. UIDE provides a higher-level conceptual design tool that facilitates the iterative design process of specification, generation, and evaluation.

The Alvey Programme?intelligent knowledge based systems aspects

The paper describes the aims and activities of the UK Government-financed programme on advanced information technology known as the Alvey Programme. Essentially, Alvey supports four areas from a total grant of 200 million spread over 5 years from 1983: software engineering, man-machine interface, VLSI and intelligent knowledge-based systems (IKBS). The whole is managed by the Alvey Directorate of which the author is a director. On IKBS the Alvey strategy is to increase university/industry collaborative research, promote markets for IKBS products and increase the supply of skilled manpower. They are financing four large-scale demonstrator projects: a speech-input work station, design-to-product system, decision-support system and mobile information systems. Each is being undertaken by a consortium of industry/academic interests. Among current smaller-scale projects are flight simulators and fault diagnosis systems for the internal combustion engine and transmissions. Another important set of activities consists in strengthening the infra-structure via standardisation of hardware, software and languages. The directorate also carries out general promotional and educational activities.

Skills, rules, and knowledge; signals, signs, and symbols, and other distinctions in human performance models

The introduction of information technology based on digital computers for the design of man-machine interface systems has led to a requirement for consistent models of human performance in routine task environments and during unfamiliar task conditions. A discussion is presented of the requirement for different types of models for representing performance at the skill-, rule-, and knowledge-based levels, together with a review of the different levels in terms of signals, signs, and symbols. Particular attention is paid to the different possible ways of representing system properties which underlie knowledge-based performance and which can be characterised at several levels of abstraction-from the representation of physical form, through functional representation, to representation in terms of intention or purpose. Furthermore, the role of qualitative and quantitative models in the design and evaluation of interface systems is mentioned, and the need to consider such distinctions carefully is discussed.

Effective information system security with password controls

Abstract Password systems are a first line of defense that can prevent, deter, and detect abusive acts. They are one of the most cost effective computer resource control mechanisms presently available. This piece explores some of the more salient aspects of password system design, including objectives of password controls, design philosophies, man-machine interface design, system administration, and technical system implementation.

Effective information system security with password controls

Abstract Password systems are a first line of defense that can prevent, deter, and detect abusive acts. They are one of the most cost effective computer resource control mechanisms presently available. This piece explores some of the more salient aspects of password system design, including objectives of password controls, design philosophies, man-machine interface design, system administration, and technical system implementation.

Recent Computerized Power Generation Plant Automation and Advanced Man-Machine Interface System

This paper presents a description of recent computerized power generation plant automation and advanced man-machine interface systems. The automation software system is called COPOS (Computerized Optimum Plant Operation System), and the advanced man-machine interface software system is called PODIA (Plant Operation by Displayed Information and Automation). The authors describe, first of all, practical methods applied to the full automation of a fossil fired power plant by COPOS. For example, there is the fundamental philosophy of plant operation phases separation, sub-control systems separation, modes separation and WCD (Work Control Drive). Also described is the COPOS software system, which features the problem oriented language (FILL IN BLANKS) called PLANT TABLES. Lastly, the authors describe the development of the displayed control panel, which makes effective use of many graphic color CRTs for advanced man-machine interface.The fundamental philosophy described in the paper is throughly useful and applicable to other process plants

Semantic grammar

One of the major stumbling blocks to more effective used computers by naive users is the lack of natural means of communication between the user and the computer system. This report discusses a paradigm for constructing efficient and friendly man-machine interface systems involving subsets of natural language for limited domains of discourse. As such this work falls somewhere between highly constrained formal language query systems and unrestricted natural language under-standing systems. The primary purpose of this research is not to advance our theoretical under-standing of natural language but rather to put forth a set of techniques for embedding both semantic/conceptual and pragmatic information into a useful natural language interface module. Our intent has been to produce a front end system which enables the user to concentrate on his problem or task rather than making him worry about how to communicate his ideas or questions to the machine.

Experience with Touch Panel Control at SLAC

The touch panel man-machine interface system was developed at SLAC to help implement control room consolidation. The decision to consolidate the two accelerator-research area control rooms was made in 1970 in order to increase operating efficiency. 1 An acoustical touch-panel was proposed and developed. 2 A cross-wire touch panel was implemented when it appeared that it could be produced more quickly and at a lower cost. We now have eight cross-wire systems and one acoustic system installed as control surfaces in our Main Control Center. These control surfaces are mounted over standard C.R.T. video monitors to form the control-display unit. We chose this method of control and display over competing systems such as light-penunits because of the ease of control. Lightpens become a burden when several displays are mounted side-by-side. The operator is required to make many changes on all three units of a group and the use of lightpens would be too time consuming. ’