Electronic, Electrical & Computer Engineering

The University of Birmingham
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Tel: (+44) (0) 121 414 3965
Fax: (+44) (0) 121 414 4291

Current Research Projects

Wearable Computers and Pervasive Computing

I began exploring the concept of wearable computers as part of a project on multimodal human-computer interaction with the Speech Research Unit, DERA, Malvern, in 1995. This led to an EPSRC-funded project (1997 to 2000) to investigate applications of wearable computers to the three main emergency services (police, fire and ambulance) in the UK. The aim was to develop and evaluate prototype wearable devices that could be used by these personnel, and to disseminate the project findings through exhibitions and workshops. This was followed by a European Union IST 4^th Framework project ‘Lab of Tomorrow’, in which we designed a shirt that can be worn by schoolchildren when they play sports (the SensVest). The SensVest (subsequently manufactured by ANCO) records physiological data, such as pulse, movement and temperature. These data are relayed to the classroom and used in the teaching of physics, e.g., for learning about principles of energy. A further EPSRC-funded project (2004 to 2007) further developed these concepts, together with notions of distributed cognition, to the exploration of crime scenes and the collection and interpretation of evidence. I gave a keynote on aspects of this work to the Naturalistic Decision Making conference.

In addition to technology that can be worn on the person, I have been exploring ways in which sensors can be fitted to everyday objects to see how this affects human performance. In particular, this involves the ways in which everyday actions and gestures, such as raising a glass from the table to one’s mouth, could be used to cue changes in the world. What is interesting is the ways in which combining humans with smart objects / environments could lead to new notions of ‘ambient intelligence’, i.e., not simply have smart things around us, but having humans interact with novel technologies to make the environment smarter. A European Union IST 7^th Framework project ‘Bravehealth’ (2010-2014) is developing on-body sensors for ambulatory ECG and using mobile phones to share these data with clinicians.

Defence Technology Centre for Human Factors Integration

The Pervasive Computing Group is part of a UK Defence Technology Consortium (2003-2010). In particular, we have two roles in this project. The first is to develop and research prototype wearable systems that can support distributed collaboration. The second role is to examine how configurations and operations of people in command networks, through field study and through modelling. This work is involved the application of Social Network Analysis to command and control, and has led to the development of novel theories of Shared Situation Awareness. We have developed the WESTT modelling tool (Workload, Error, Situation awareness, Time & Teamwork).

Models of Human Performance

An ongoing interest of mine is on ways in which one can ‘model’ human performance. By model, I probably mean using descriptions of activity to make some prediction about performance. So this has involved looking into task-network modelling and critical path analysis (particularly for speech-based and multimodal systems), or human error. More recently, I have been looking at Social Network Analysis as a way of understanding command and control systems, and also started to at ways in which distributed knowledge and shared awareness can be represented.

Ergonomics and Human Interaction with Technology

I have been involved in ergonomics research since 1987. My main area of interest is in the ways in which people make sense of and make use of ‘everyday technology’ and how ‘everyday’ skills can be brought to bear in people’s interaction with computers. My early research was into speech-based interaction with computers, and I was particularly interested in issues of error correction and dialogue design.

I wrote a book entitled ‘Cognition and Tool Use’ (published by Taylor and Francis, 2003 see a draft), which explores that ways in which humans and animals make use of tools. I propose a simple framework, which I call ‘forms of engagement’ which is used to explain the different ways in which tool-users ‘engage’ with tools. The forms of engagement are environmental, morphological, motor, perceptual, cognitive, cultural. In order to address the apparently effortless ways in which people use tools, I make use of two concepts: affordance (of which I feel that are several types), and schema, particularly in terms of the contrast between motor and cognitive accounts. A shorter account of these ideas was recently published in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

If you have any comments about this webpage, please contact Chris Baber . Last updated 03-February-2010