An Assessment of Various Two-Dimensional Display Designs for a Camera Based Remote Freight Handling System

摘要

In recent years, the Port of Singapore Authority set up a camera based semi-automated remote freight handling system for yard operations. Operators are now located in a central control room where they control cranes to pick up and land containers. The computer is tasked with moving containers between pick up/landing locations and for scheduling container handling tasks to available operators. A human factors concern associated with such a system is the loss of physiological depth perception due to the inability of the quad-display of camera views to provide three-dimensional views. As such, operators have to rely largely on psychological depth cues to operate the crane and to manipulate the container/spreader. It is therefore vital that the position of the cameras is optirmised to present the most appropriate view to support psychological depth perception. This paper reports a study conducted to address this concern. Its objective is to assess whether the existing display view could be enhanced to better support psychological depth perception required by the operator's task. Thus, a computer simulation of five different display views was developed for subject testing, to enable a comparative assessment of their efficacy. The data derived was subjected to ANOVA and Least-Square Regression analyses. Of the display views investigated, the results indicated that a bi-camera display view of two corners of a container, enabled subjects to achieve the best container handling performance (P = 0.001).