Review of the Cognitive Systems Engineering Research at the WPAFB Armstrong Laboratory Human Engineering Design

The objective of the present study is an evaluation of the Armstrong Lab.activities within the domain of "Cognitive Systems Engineering" together with a comparison with other salient activities within this domain, and proposal of promising additions to the Armstrong Lab. research program from the perspective of the Framework for Cognitive Engineering developed through the later decades at Risø National Laboratory. The report is organized in the following way: To set the stage for the evaluation judgments, a review is presented of the C2 - Communication and Command - research needs as formulated by the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.2 This is followed by a brief discussion of the aim and concepts of the cognitive engineering framework as developed at Risø. This presentation also includes a discussion of the implications of this perspective for "cognitive systems engineering" research as compared to research within separate university disciplines. This review is intended to create a conceptual map to locate the research efforts of the Armstrong Laboratory (AL) projects within the"cognitive systems engineering" context and to identify possible voids within the research program.Next, a review of current research programs in aviation is given to define the present state-of-the-art of aviation research followed by a review of the AL. research program.