The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Analysis Center has awarded a $1.35 million grant to a team of UAH faculty members to further research in human-systems integration analysis and artificial intelligence (AI). The departments of psychology, computer science, and industrial and systems engineering will each be represented on the interdisciplinary team.

“This team has been working for many years on projects sponsored by the Navy, the Army, the Department of Defense and NASA,” explains Dr. Bryan Mesmer, the principal investigator and associate professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering and Engineering Management (ISEEM). “Modern, complex systems, such as autonomous systems, are fundamentally interdisciplinary. To address the challenges associated with these interdisciplinary systems, it is necessary to approach them through an interdisciplinary lens.”

Alongside Mesmer, the UAH research team includes Dr. Kristin Weger, associate professor of psychology; Dr. Lisa Vangsness, assistant professor of psychology; and Dr. Vineetha Menon, associate professor of computer science. The team also includes Dr. Howard Chen, Dr. Hanumanthrao Kannan, and Dr. Ana Wooley, all assistant professors in the ISEEM department.

One specific focus of the grant is studying “human operator intent,” which refers to understanding a person’s goals when using a system or completing a task. This idea is important in areas like human-computer interaction and robotics, where systems need to predict and respond to user actions to provide better support.

Dr. Lisa Vangsness, assistant professor in UAH’s psychology department, spoke with the Huntsville Business Journal about what it means to be a part of this team.

“Product design is an interdisciplinary problem that involves nested systems. Our team is successful in bridging those gaps because we don’t just design products … we design products for people,” explained Vangsness. “I like to think of my role in the project as one of translation. In one sense, I issue recommendations to improve how autonomous and AI systems “communicate” with humans. In another, I identify the qualities and characteristics that need to be measured to create an accurate digital model of a human’s current state.”

Vangsness provided a concrete example to illustrate how these concepts move from theory to practice.

“A practical example of this might be adjusting a system’s displayed information at various levels of operator workload,” Vangsness continued. “Humans do this naturally all the time: when traffic picks up, passengers often stop talking to allow the driver to focus more. Getting a system to understand the human’s mental state — and vice versa — is an important part of system design, and it’s a role I’m privileged to serve in on the team.”

The team also plans to research how digital twins can be used to train AI models. Digital twins create virtual representations of physical objects, systems, or processes, and leverage live data to simulate behavior. Digital twins can be used to manage operations, detect potential trouble spots, and enhance decision-making in intricate systems.

By bringing scholars together from across various disciplines, the UAH team increases its ability to produce research which has the potential to shape the use of AI in the defense and aerospace sectors, and beyond.