An Officer on Watch (OOW) is a person aboard the vessel who, besides classical and typical officers' duties, has the basic duty to safely navigate the ship. Positioned on the bridge, he oversees the vessel's route by monitoring and interpreting instrumental data with situational awareness around the ship's vicinity. The safety of navigation ensures compliance with maritime rules COLREG, where the collision avoidance in typical circumstances is described, together with recommendations such as the minimum distance between vessels - closest point to approach (CPA), when the safety of navigation in given conditions becomes endangered. Additional tasks during the watch, which are not directly related to navigation, increase the officer's workload, which is considered a demanding workload circumstance.
The aim of the dissertation is to review the research area and the possibility of measuring the participant's psycho physiological parameters during the avoidance maneuver in a nautical simulator. The main objective is to investigate the methods of data acquisition together with their interpretation during simulated collision avoidance maneuvering. Potentially dangerous navigational errors, known as human erroneous action (HEA), cause excessive workload, which is commonly associated with the causes of incidents at sea. The design of the experiment includes two typical sets of navigation: navigation and maneuvering. Experienced captains (N=5) participate in the first set, and marine pilots
(N=8) and students (N=8) in the second set. Each set contains a control and experimental measurement phase, where the psychophysiological response of the participants is measured with a multi-sensor biometric bracelet in relation to the disturbing factor. The observed physical characteristics are the heart rate (HR), electro-dermal activity (EDA), and the blood volume pulse (BVP).
The values are then compared with the individual phases of the measurement, from which we can conclude about the intensity of the physical response, which indicates the participant's workload. Statistical tools are used to visualize data and evaluate the influence of individual parameters, which usually occur either during a collision avoidance maneuver when the officer is exposed to the disturbing factor or during a state of increased attention and situational awareness during the port approaching phase. The results show increased body responses during the demanding phase, which prolong the reaction time. Thus, from the point of view of navigation safety, increases the potential odds for navigational error. The experimental design is challenging due to the limitations of the simulator, the type of simulated navigation, and the type of sensor used. After a careful study of the available literature, an original experimental design using non-invasive biometric sensors is proposed.
|
