PhD Studentship in A framework to assess the effectiveness of wearable technologies in complex operations

In major civil engineering industries, e.g. construction, marine and offshore energy and transport, research indicates that the role of the human is critical to ensuring safe operations, e.g. in transport operations of any mode, humans are involved in 70-80% of accidents. Therefore aspects of human performance are a key driver of risk and performance in these areas, e.g. fatigue, workload. Human performance measures relate to the cognitive resources available to an individual for conducting their tasks and duties and there are three major means by which to measure human performance:

i) Ratings scales
ii) Performance measures associated with primary and secondary tasks
iii) Psychophysiological measures.

Traditionally, the first two methods have been the most widely used for gathering data in human performance, given their ease of use and the lack of physiological techniques that can be easily applied and interpreted. However, there have been major advances in recent years in wearable technologies which offer a major opportunity to assess human performance in real time and not only enhance safety, but also can improve productivity.

Despite the promise of these technologies, there is a need to assess their effectiveness for daily use in the operational scenario, and in order to do this, there is a need to consider the following when selecting an appropriate human performance measuring technique:

i) Sensitivity
• Ability to discriminate between different variations within behavioural measurement, e.g. workload, , fatigue stress, associated with a task
ii) Diagnosticity
• Differentiation between subsets of workload/ fatigue etc dependent on cognitive resources.
iii) Intrusiveness
• Degree to which the measure intrudes on the nature of the task.
iv) Implementation
• Nature of integrating a technique prior to its implementation (including training)
v) Acceptance
• Validity by which users accept the metric in the context of application

There are further issues to consider when assessing updates of the software for to wearable technology and methods to incorporate teamwork, rather than solely indivual performance.

Given this background, this PhD research aims to develop of framework for assessing the effectiveness of wearable technologies, and involves the following:
• Review of existing literature – in particular of both human performance and wearable technologies;
• Choice of wearable technology – e.g. fatigue or workload measuring tools fitted into hard-hats in construction, or voice recording devices for workload;
• Cross-industry &/or “task transferrable” – it’s important that this research considers industries in which human performance is a key aspect of the risk, e.g. the construction industry and airline pilots;
• Over a time period – with the considerable developments in technology, new wearable products are always coming to the market, but rarely is one such technology worn over a period of time to see how effective and robust the measurements are;
• Analysis of the data – large amounts of data are available from the wearable technologies, which need to be analysed statistically in the first instance. In addition, the data analysis needs to be seen in the context of human performance theory in order for the effectiveness of the technologies to be assessed.
• Framework validation – at least two industries need to be involved in order to check the framework is valid.

This research has a high potential impact in that no framework currently exists by which to assess the effectiveness of such wearable technologies in operational scenarios.