The thesis focuses on the topic of benefits and limitations of various HMI user assessment methods. In the theoretical part of the thesis there is introduced the HMI theory, summarized HMI user assessment methods, presented knowledge about their utilization and the available tools are mapped. The goal of the practical part is testing of selected HMI user assessment methods related to the requirements of the commercial automotive sector. The result of practical part is a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of individual approaches and their specifics. The diploma thesis was prepared in accordance with the valid internal regulations of the Charles University and other methodological guidelines and normative documents. Keywords: user experience, UX, usability, user interface, UI, HMI, human-machine interface, automotive, usability evaluation, user assessment, user testing, usability testing

Angesichts der steigenden Anzahl von Funktionen in Fahrzeugen, insbesondere im Pkw, sind neue Bedien- und Anzeigesysteme notwendig, die eine optimale Bedienbarkeit der Funktionen sicherstellen und die Ablenkung des Fahrers von der Fahraufgabe minimieren. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird dazu der Einsatz variabler Bedienelemente verfolgt, die sich der aktuellen Bedienaufgabe optimal anpassen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es insbesondere, Vorgehensweisen und Gestaltungsempfehlungen für variable Beschriftung von Tasten und zentrale Bedienelemente mit variabler Formcodierung für abgesetzte Bedien- und Anzeigesysteme zu erarbeiten. Unter Zuhilfenahme arbeitswissenschaftlicher Methoden wird dafür zunächst die Gestaltung variabler Beschriftung von Tasten untersucht und Empfehlungen für deren Gestaltung abgeleitet. Des Weiteren wird die Entwicklung eines zentralen Bedienelements mit variabler Formcodierung beschrieben. Dazu wird, aufbauend auf bekannten Entwicklungs- und Auswahlverfahren für Bedienelemente, eine Vorgehensweise zur Entwicklung variabler Bedienelemente vorgeschlagen. Das entwickelte variable zentrale Bedienelement wird darüber hinaus hinsichtlich seiner Bedienbarkeit und Ablenkungswirkung bewertet. Aus den Versuchsergebnissen konnten Gestaltungsempfehlungen abgeleitet werden, wie durch ein variables zentrales Bedienelement die Bedienbarkeit von abgesetzten Bedien- und Anzeigesystemen verbessert und die Ablenkungswirkung reduziert werden kann. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit leisten einen Beitrag zur Entwicklung zukünftiger abgesetzter Bedien- und Anzeigesysteme und geben insbesondere Entwicklern und Gestaltern eine Hilfestellung beim Einsatz variabler Bedienelemente.

This study aims to evaluate the preferences of drivers in Sweden, in regard to incar digital media players. As interfaces in cars, to some extent, are taking over thefunctionality of physical buttons and knobs, it is increasingly important for carmanufacturers to better understand what their users prefer.Through an analysis of current trends and measurements of user preferences, wehave identified areas for improvement and further development of these mediaplayer interfaces. These suggested improvements are as follows: • Using the screen real estate for important items • Emphasizing important elements by more efficient use of spacing andsizing • Removing or hiding menu items that are used sparingly • Using the concept of familiarity to create more user-friendly interfaces

Die Zunahme von Meldungen über Zwischenfälle in Kliniken und deren Ursachen werden in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft diskutiert. Aus der Literatur lässt sich ableiten, dass die Mensch-Maschine-Schnittstelle Einfluss auf die Fehlerentstehung hat. Daher wird eine qualitative, standardisierte Befragung bei Anwendern von Medizingeräten durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass anthropometrische Gestaltungsregeln bisher wenig beachtet werden und dass ergonomische Vorgaben bei der Gestaltung von Menüstrukturen nach wie vor Verzögerungen im klinischen Arbeitsfluss hervorrufen, worunter die Effizienz und besonders die Zufriedenheit der Mitarbeiter leidet.

The study aimed to identify and analyse methods for establishing external communication between humans and autonomous/teleoperated machines/vehicles using various Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs). The study was divided into three phases. The purpose of the first phase was to identify and highlight previously tested/researched methods for establishing external communication by conducting a literature review. The findings from the literature review were categorised into six points of interest: machine indications, test delivery methods, HMI technologies/types, symbols, textual/numerical messages, and colours associated with different indications. Based on these findings, four HMIs (projection, display, LED-strip, and auditory) were selected for evaluation in a virtual reality environment for the second phase of the study, which has the purpose of identifying which of the human-machine interfaces can effectively communicate the intentions of autonomous/teleoperated machines to humans. The results of phase two indicate that the participants preferred projection as the most effective individual HMI, and when given the option to combine two HMIs, projection combined with auditory was the most preferred combination. The participants were also asked to pick three HMIs of their choosing, resulting in the projection, display and audible HMI combination being the preferred option. The evaluation of HMIs in a virtual reality environment contributes to improving dependability and identifying usability issues.  The objective of the third and final phase was to gather all the findings from the previous phases and subsequently refine the report until it was considered finalised. Future work includes enhancing the realism of the VR environment, refining machine behaviour and scenarios, enabling multiple participants to simultaneously interact with the environment, and exploring alternative evaluation methods. Addressing these areas will lead to more realistic evaluations and advancements in human-machine interaction research.

Cyber-physical systems are networked through IT infrastructure and susceptible to malware. Threats targeting process control are much more safety-critical than traditional computing systems since they jeopardize the integrity of physical infrastructure. Existing defence mechanisms address security at the network nodes but do not protect the physical infrastructure if network integrity is compromised. An interface guardian architecture is implemented on cyber-physical control leaf nodes to maintain process integrity by enforcing high-level safety and stability policies. Preemptive detection schemes are implemented to monitor process behavior and anticipate malicious activity before process safety and stability are compromised. Autonomic properties are employed to automatically protect process integrity by initiating switch-over to a verified backup controller. Subsystems adhere to strict trust requirements safeguarding them from adversarial intrusion. The preemptive detection schemes, switch-over logic, backup controller, and process communication are all trusted components that are separated from the untrusted production controller. The proposed architecture is applied to a rotary inverted pendulum experiment and implemented on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 configurable SoC. The leaf node implementation is integrated into a cyber-physical control topology. Simulated attack scenarios show strengthened resilience to both network integrity and reconfiguration attacks. Threats attempting to disrupt process behavior are successfully thwarted by having a backup controller maintain process stability. The system ensures both safety and liveness properties even under adversarial conditions. / Master of Science

Este trabalho apresenta um sistema de conferência multiponto centralizada com controle de posse da palavra, que oferece comunicação por voz e por texto, desenvolvido para dar suporte a ferramentas de educação a distância baseadas em tecnologia web. Além do sistema de conferência multiponto, este trabalho introduz, também, conceitos de voz sobre IP (VoIP), codecs de áudio, tráfego de tempo real sobre redes IP, mecanismos de distribuição de pacotes em redes IP, conferências multimídia sobre redes IP, criação e controle de conferências e mecanismos para se controlar a transmissão de pacotes de voz em conferências multiponto, como detecção de atividade de voz (VAD) e controle de posse da palavra. O controle de posse da palavra ou moderação é uma metodologia para coordenar o acesso a recursos de mídia contínua, como os canais de áudio e vídeo em conferências, resolvendo eventuais conflitos e condições de corrida e garantindo o uso exclusivo dos mesmos por um participante da conferência. O controle de posse da palavra é apropriado para a dinâmica de uma sala de aula, onde na maioria das vezes, o professor exerce o papel de um moderador e de principal interlocutor. Além de regular o fluxo de informação na sala de aula virtual, o controle de posse da palavra também ajuda a reduzir a utilização dos recursos da rede. Como principal resultado deste trabalho, uma arquitetura para o sistema de conferência multiponto foi proposta, implementada e testada. Verificou-se que o sistema é escalável e que o controle de posse da palavra reduz o grau de interatividade entre os participantes da conferência, mas funciona eficazmente como mecanismo para reduzir a utilização dos recursos de rede. A comunicação adicional por texto ajuda a reduzir o impacto do controle de posse da palavra no grau de interatividade. Neste trabalho, o uso de uma topologia centralizada para a realização de conferências multiponto mostrou-se bastante vantajoso, principalmente porque o tráfego multicast não era suportado. / This work presents a centralized multipoint conference system with floor control, which offers voice and text communication capability, developed to support distance learning tools based on web technology. This work also brings concepts about voice over IP (VoIP), audio codecs, real-time traffic over IP networks, packet distribution mechanisms in IP networks, multimedia conferences over IP networks, establishment and control of conferences and mechanisms to control voice packets transmission in multipoint conferences, as Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and floor control. Floor control is a suitable methodology for coordinating access to continuous media resources, such as audio and video channels in conferences, solving resource conflicts and race conditions and guaranteeing their mutually exclusive use by one participant of the conference. Floor control is appropriate for the classroom’s dynamics, where the teacher, mostly, has the role of a moderator and main talker. Besides regulating the information flow in the virtual classroom, floor control helps reducing the need for network resources. As main result, an architecture for the multipoint conference system was proposed, implemented and tested. It was found that the system is scalable and that floor control reduces the interactivity among the conference’s participants, but works efficiently as a mechanism for reducing the need for network resources. Text communications help lowering the impact of floor control on interactivity. In this work, the deployment of a centralized topology for multipoint conferences showed to be very advantageous, mainly because multicast traffic was not supported.

Este trabalho apresenta um sistema de conferência multiponto centralizada com controle de posse da palavra, que oferece comunicação por voz e por texto, desenvolvido para dar suporte a ferramentas de educação a distância baseadas em tecnologia web. Além do sistema de conferência multiponto, este trabalho introduz, também, conceitos de voz sobre IP (VoIP), codecs de áudio, tráfego de tempo real sobre redes IP, mecanismos de distribuição de pacotes em redes IP, conferências multimídia sobre redes IP, criação e controle de conferências e mecanismos para se controlar a transmissão de pacotes de voz em conferências multiponto, como detecção de atividade de voz (VAD) e controle de posse da palavra. O controle de posse da palavra ou moderação é uma metodologia para coordenar o acesso a recursos de mídia contínua, como os canais de áudio e vídeo em conferências, resolvendo eventuais conflitos e condições de corrida e garantindo o uso exclusivo dos mesmos por um participante da conferência. O controle de posse da palavra é apropriado para a dinâmica de uma sala de aula, onde na maioria das vezes, o professor exerce o papel de um moderador e de principal interlocutor. Além de regular o fluxo de informação na sala de aula virtual, o controle de posse da palavra também ajuda a reduzir a utilização dos recursos da rede. Como principal resultado deste trabalho, uma arquitetura para o sistema de conferência multiponto foi proposta, implementada e testada. Verificou-se que o sistema é escalável e que o controle de posse da palavra reduz o grau de interatividade entre os participantes da conferência, mas funciona eficazmente como mecanismo para reduzir a utilização dos recursos de rede. A comunicação adicional por texto ajuda a reduzir o impacto do controle de posse da palavra no grau de interatividade. Neste trabalho, o uso de uma topologia centralizada para a realização de conferências multiponto mostrou-se bastante vantajoso, principalmente porque o tráfego multicast não era suportado. / This work presents a centralized multipoint conference system with floor control, which offers voice and text communication capability, developed to support distance learning tools based on web technology. This work also brings concepts about voice over IP (VoIP), audio codecs, real-time traffic over IP networks, packet distribution mechanisms in IP networks, multimedia conferences over IP networks, establishment and control of conferences and mechanisms to control voice packets transmission in multipoint conferences, as Voice Activity Detection (VAD) and floor control. Floor control is a suitable methodology for coordinating access to continuous media resources, such as audio and video channels in conferences, solving resource conflicts and race conditions and guaranteeing their mutually exclusive use by one participant of the conference. Floor control is appropriate for the classroom’s dynamics, where the teacher, mostly, has the role of a moderator and main talker. Besides regulating the information flow in the virtual classroom, floor control helps reducing the need for network resources. As main result, an architecture for the multipoint conference system was proposed, implemented and tested. It was found that the system is scalable and that floor control reduces the interactivity among the conference’s participants, but works efficiently as a mechanism for reducing the need for network resources. Text communications help lowering the impact of floor control on interactivity. In this work, the deployment of a centralized topology for multipoint conferences showed to be very advantageous, mainly because multicast traffic was not supported.

[pt] Veículos autônomos ou Higly Automated Vehicles (HAVs) vêm trazendo novos paradigmas para o campo da ergonomia automotiva. A partir do momento em que motoristas se encontram fora de um loop contínuo de tomada de decisão, suas capacidades de retomada de controle manual do veículo durante situações de emergência são comprometidas. Para mitigar este problema, muitos autores acreditam que um maior entendimento dos padrões de aquisição de informação durante retomadas de controle em automação veicular pode fornecer insumos para a concepção de ferramentas designadas a auxiliar o motorista nesta tarefa, ao fornecer informações relevantes em momentos de necessidade. Baseado nestas questões, esta pesquisa visou categorizar o acesso de motoristas a diferentes informações oferecidas em interfaces de veículos autônomos durante a retomada de controle em diferentes níveis de automação. A pesquisa abordou o problema por meio de experimentos em simuladores de condução, onde motoristas foram expostos a diferentes cenários de retomada de controle, e seu seus padrões de olhar foram avaliados, para se testar a hipótese de que eles geralmente acessam a informação presente na interface apenas durante a retomada de controle em si, para checar o estado do sistema. Os resultados sugerem que o olhar do motorista está sujeito a influência de dois fatores: nível de automação e tarefa desempenhada. Foi observado que uma maior a quantidade de informação oferecida na interface aumenta concentração de olhares do motorista nesta região. Informações ativas sobre o ambiente melhoraram o desempenho do motorista durante as retomadas, porém tal benefício não se refletiu em uma maior usabilidade percebida. / [en] Highly automated vehicles (HAVs) are bringing new perspectives for the field of automotive ergonomics. By the time the driver is not constantly on the decision-making loop of the task, his/her performance for resuming control of the automation in safety-critical situations seems to be diminished. To mitigate this problem, many authors believe that by understanding drivers information scanning patterns and decision-making process during transitions of control in vehicle automation it is possible to design tools better adapted to support them in this activity, by providing relevant information in appropriate times. Based on this issue, this research aimed to categorize driver s reliance on the different information provided by the system s HMI during transitions of control in different levels of automation. The research followed a driving simulator experimental approach, where drivers were exposed to different take-over scenarios and their gaze behaviour was measured to test the hypothesis that they generally rely on information on the road to gain situation awareness, and only access the information on the HMI in cases of transitions of control, to check the system status. The results suggest that driver s gaze behaviour patterns are susceptible to influence of two main factors: the level of automation and the task in hand. It was observed that the more information presented on the HMI, the more drivers will look at it. Active information about the road environment have enhanced drivers performance during transitions of control, but it was not reflected in terms of perceived usability of the systems.

Les véhicules de demain, (2020), devront diminuer leurs émissions globales de CO2 de 30% selon les directives européennes. Une solution qui apparait aujourd’hui comme inévitable est la substitution des métaux présents dans les châssis de véhicules par des matériaux composites plus légers et tout aussi performants. Pour généraliser cette approche à tout le secteur automobile, un temps court de fabrication des pièces est exigé pour satisfaire les cadences de production allant jusqu’à 1000 véhicules par jour. La production automatisée et robotisée de ces matériaux, basée sur la technologie de photo-polymérisation au moyen de rayonnements UV, répond à ces exigences. Le procédé de fabrication élaboré se décompose en deux phases : une phase de fabrication automatisée de pré-imprégnés (prépregs), produits semi-finis, et une phase de mise en forme et d’obtention du produit final (composite UV). La première étape consiste en l’imprégnation d’un renfort fibreux sec par une résine liquide photo-polymérisable, puis l’irradiation de celle-ci par des rayonnements UV, de manière à ce que la résine ne soit pas totalement polymérisée. On obtient alors un prépreg collant. La seconde étape de fabrication impose que les pré-imprégnés soient conditionnés parfaitement sous forme de bobines pour qu’ils soient intégrés dans un dispositif robotisé de dépose. D’où la nécessité de concevoir et de réaliser une machine automatisée de production des pré-imprégnés (objet de cette thèse). Cette machine a nécessité une automatisation se caractérisant par l'utilisation d'outils d'instrumentation et de pilotage modernes (servomoteurs Brushless, IHM, capteurs, …). Les essais réalisés sur cette machine ont permis de réaliser des premiers prépregs, dont les résultats ont conduit à des pistes de réflexion pour approfondir l'automatisation de la machine en vue d'améliorer le procédé de fabrication de ces prépregs. / The overall CO2 emission of the future vehicles, (2020), must be reduced by 30%, according to European directives. A solution that seems inevitable nowadays is the substitution of metals present in the vehicle chassis by lighter and equally efficient composite-materials. To generalize this approach throughout the automotive sector, a short manufacturing time of these materials is required to meet the high required production rates, of up to 1000 vehicles per day. The automated and robotic production of these materials, depending on the photo polymerization technology by UV radiation, meets these requirements. The developed automated manufacturing process consists of two phases: the phase of automated manufacturing of semi-finished composite (prepreg), and the phase of shaping and obtaining the final composite (UV composite). The first phase depends on the impregnation of fibrous reinforcement with a photo-polymerizable and liquid resin, then, on the partial irradiation of impregnated reinforcement with UV rays, in such a way that the resin is not completely cured. Thereby, a tacky prepreg is obtained. The second phase of automated manufacturing process requires that the prepregs must be perfectly reeled up in a form of coils, so that they can be incorporated in a robotic lay-up placement head. Hence, the need to design and produce a machine of automated prepreg production (subject of this thesis) is absolutely necessary. This machine requires automation, characterized by the use of modern instrumentations and control tools (Brushless Servo, Human–computer interface HCI, sensors...). The tests performed by this machine have enabled the production of the first prepregs, of which the results led to further approaches to develop the automation of this machine in order to improve the prepregs manufacturing process.