Season’s greetings and a prosperous Year 2017

…with best wishes from HFC Human-Factors-Consult.

Besinnliche Festtage und ein erfolgreiches Jahr 2017

Cordial thanks for the pleasant cooperation during the past years.

Make a robot a colleague

Learn about the human-robot-interaction or other exciting topics from our portfolio. Since October 2016, we are working in two new robotic-projects, in which we observe the human-robot-collaboration from an ethical perspective and also deal with specific implementation for SMEs.

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ACTION-TV at the Media Days in Munich

Our project ACTION-TV was being presented at the Media days in Munich Germany held from October 25-27, 2016.

Action TV

With smart data, smart TV, and social media the project reflected quite well key topics of the exhibition. At the fair, you were able to meet a wide range of digital media professionals: TV and radio broadcasters, online and mobile content providers as well as companies in the areas of production and media technologies.

Learn more about the project from our new 360° video.

What happens if the professional rescue forces are not sufficient in severe thunderstorm conditions?

On the 8th of October HFC has conducted the second full scale exercise within the scope of the project ensure in cooperation with the project partners. More than 100 voluntary citizens, pretended injured actors of the DLRG, and professional rescue forces of the Berlin fire brigade and the German Red Cross have practiced such a thunderstorm scenario. Therein, the cooperation of engaged citizens and professional rescue forces was tested. In addition, more than 50 guests from the home and abroad took part to discuss together the new approach for the integration of spontaneous helpers.

ensure fullscale exercise

Two HFC project reports published by German Federal Highway Research Institute BASt

At an interval of only a few days, two reports of HFC were published, which were prepared in projects conducted for the German Federal Highway Research Institute.

BASt Berichte

In Wahrnehmungspsychologische Analyse der Radfahraufgabe (M 267) / Perceptual psychological analysis of the cycling task cyclists’ visual and acoustic perception of road traffic are explored, and identified types and causes of perceptional errors are reported (visit our project page).

Barrierefreiheit bei Fernlinienbussen (F 114) / Accessibility in long-distance buses deals with recommendations for long-distance bus accessibility, which would support the development of harmonised European requirements (visit our project page).

Both reports are available in German on the BASt website.

Field test of ENSURE

On the 17th of June, senator for internal affairs and sports Frank Henkel and fire director of Berlin Wilfried Gräfling gave the start signal for the volunteer-system: ENSURE.

ensure - App
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HFC at 15. Berliner Firmenlauf

HFC was represented again this year by 12 highly motivated runners at the 15. Berliner Firmenlauf on May 27th.

15. Berliner Firmenlauf

Everybody who participated for the second time, was able to keep or even improve their performance of the last year on the 5.5 km track.

Humans and robots – a team with perspectives

How will humans interact with robots in the near future? This is a hotly discussed topic in the research community as well as in industry. In this context, the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) hosted the workshop “Human-Robot Interaction” on the 11th of April.

Workshop Collage

The talks, also one from HFC, were concerned with trends in human-robot interaction such as working in collaborative mixed teams. To demonstrate possible areas of application, the workshop ended with a tour through the DASA exhibition “Die Roboter”. One example of new application was a portrait drawing robot which also portrayed one of our colleagues. Is this art now?
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ABALID – Final Test on March, 5th

In the context of the project ABALID the final tests for the turning assistant for trucks took place on march, 5th at Innovationspark Wuhlheide Berlin.

abalid_fahrversuche

The trials focused on the evaluation of a Graphical User Interface to support truck drivers in potential conflict situations involving cyclists when turning right. In cooperation with MRT from Karlsruhe and engineering firm Spies a prototype was developed, which could be tested in a variety of scenarios thanks to the great support of truckage company Meyer & Meyer.

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HFC is part of the EAAP Conference in Portugal this year

Every two years the European Association for Aviation Psychology (EAAP) organises a conference to bring together the international scientific community. This year, HFC will participate with two presentations addressing how to integrate Human Factors into the traditional system development process. Both contributions are results related to the HoliDes project, HFC is part of.

HFTA
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Successful fair appearance of HFC in Madrid

Rodney and Astrid promoted HFC at the World ATM Congress in Madrid once more this March. We demonstrated our product MasterMAN® at our booth and at the spotlight stage. Additionally, we introduced our new software for Human Factors task analyses HF-TA. Our planning tool, the HF-TA software, and our Human Factors services received completely positive resonance. We are happy about the successful show and our constantly growing network.

WATMC_news

MasterMAN® is the worldwide only planning tool for air traffic controller. It provides traffic flow optimization for several airports in remote control, while considering staff availability and time conflicts. It supports the air traffic controllers in their planning tasks by providing an overview of the flight movements of all monitored airports. Our newest module provides staff planning, taking into account air traffic controllers’ licences and working hours.