SEAHAWK
A system that assesses cognitive workload
System to Evaluate and Assess Holistic Aircrew Workload (SEAHAWK)
Naval scientists and engineers monitor Aircrew workload as new tools are being designed; however, they are using methods that are manual, laborious, and often subjective, such as the NASA Task Load Index. These methods do not help predict advancements in expertise as personnel acquire skill at new systems and protocols. SEAHAWK gives engineers the capability to accurately evaluate the physical and cognitive workload imposed by new technologies developed for Naval Aircrew, and to forecast changes in workload as Aircrew become more expert at using the new tech
“The Navy is always developing new technologies to improve warfighting effectiveness. Aircrew learning to use these technologies risk being overloaded by the associated physical and cognitive demands, which can degrade their performance. Before they invest millions of dollars and hundreds of hours of training into a new system, SEAHAWK lets them unobtrusively and objectively assess not just the current cognitive burden of the system under development, but also what the physical and cognitive workload would be after Aircrew were fully trained to be experts on the system.”
Dr. Bethany Bracken,
Principal Scientist at Charles River Analytics
SEAHAWK has four components:
- Sensor Suite with near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), physiological monitors, and eye-tracking
- Data Processing, Fusion, and Interpretation Engine that uses statistical and probabilistic modeling techniques to extract, fuse, and process indicators of physical and cognitive workload
- Expertise Tracking and Prediction Engine that predicts the impact of practice and advancing expertise
- Custom-designed user interface to display results
Charles River has built SEAHAWK on our Sherlock™ platform, which is designed to prototype solutions based on physiological, neurological, and behavioral state.
SEAHAWK expands on our previous human state sensing and prediction efforts, including a toolkit that models individual and team cognitive state (ADAPTER), a system to automatically sense indicators of cognitive workload (MEDIC), and a system to measure, assess, and predict astronaut’s cognitive workload (CAPT PICARD).
Contact us to learn more about SEAHAWK and our other health and medical capabilities.
This material is based upon work supported by the Naval Air Warfare Center under Contract No. N68335-18-C-0134. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NAVAIR.
