Research news roundup for November

Daniel Wright, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, is adding his expertise in extreme storm prediction research to the new Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Convective Storms (CIRCS).

Wright is the University of Wisconsin-Madison site director for CIRCS, which will be located at Northern Illinois University.

CIRCS will conduct research that aims to make society more resilient and better able to withstand the impacts of “convective” storms—like tornadoes, hail and extreme rainfall. The collaborative center includes nearly two dozen scientists from the fields of atmospheric science, engineering, geography, physics, computer science, actuarial science, and risk and insurance.

“We’re mainly going to focus on things like hail and wind damage, but also more upstream questions about seasonal prediction,” Wright says. “For example, that’s trying to see if next summer is going to be at, below or above average in terms of the number of storms we’re seeing and their severity, and whether these patterns are shifting over time.”

The National Science Foundation is providing $1.5 million in funds over five years to establish the center, which will be further supported by about a dozen private companies, with each paying an annual membership fee and in return helping to direct the focus of CIRCS research.

Ranjana Mehta is the Grainger Institute for Engineering Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, who studies human behavior and the brain in working environments. Her research focuses on how people interact with emerging technologies such as robotics and augmented or virtual reality, and how those technologies can be designed to maximize impact while accounting for the challenges and limitations that accompany new developments. She also studies fatigue, especially in high-stakes environments such as emergency first response and the energy sector. In this interview, Mehta discusses how we interact with new technologies and how fatigue affects our ability to work with them.

Your work touches on rapidly evolving technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented reality. How do you see these technologies impacting workspaces as they continue to mature?

Across all these domains, my research focuses on supporting human performance. The goal of any engineer, when building these systems, is to harness human potential and do no harm.

Robots are a way of replacing humans for dangerous or dirty work. They are becoming more intelligent, but they can’t replace human intelligence and cognitive flexibility. However, they can augment human strength where needed. What we are seeing is more people designing wearable robotics, or exoskeletons, that augment and support human strength while retaining cognitive flexibility. However, that fundamentally changes how humans do their work, because we are now thinking about wearing something beyond what we usually would for workplace protection.

Another challenge is how to train workers to use these nascent technologies. Industries are gravitating toward more accessible, cost-effective, and realistic training regimes. I expect augmented and virtual reality to play a role in that, especially where more intricate, hands-on training is needed. For example, in nursing, patient simulators are available to help hospitals and universities provide a team-based learning environment where trainees can mimic the conditions they might encounter when caring for a patient. As technology advances, we may see it evolve to a system where everyone in the training uses virtual reality headsets, allowing them to receive valuable training experiences even if they are not in the same physical location.