Design and Evaluation of a User Interface for an Autonomous Agricultural Sprayer

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a user interface for a remotely supervised autonomous agricultural sprayer. The interface was designed to help the remote supervisor to instruct the autonomous sprayer to commence operation, monitor the status of the sprayer and its operation in the field, and intervene when needed (i.e., to stop or shut down). Design principles and guidelines were carefully selected to help develop a human-centered automation interface. Evaluation of the interface using a combination of heuristic, cognitive walkthrough, and user testing techniques revealed several strengths of the design as well as areas that needed further improvement. Overall, this paper provides guidelines that will assist other researchers to develop an ergonomic user interface for a fully autonomous agricultural machine.

AI-Based Culture Independent Pervasive M-Learning Prototype Using UI Plasticity Design

This paper explains the development of a culturally inclusive ubiquitous M-Learning platform(“Mobile Academy”)with an AI-based adaptive user interface.The rationale and need for this research and development are justified by the continuing widespread adoption of the Internet and Internet enabled devices,especially smartphones.The M-learning platform was designed from the onset for the global traveller.The characteristics and limitations of the application are also discussed.The Mobile Academy,proof of concept prototype,was created to facilitate teaching and learning on the move or in environments where the use of a desktop computer is inconvenient or simply impossible.The platform’s primary objective was cross-cultural usability through the use of a combination of AI and plasticity of user interface design techniques.The usability evaluation plan was comprehensive and the results obtained were studied in detail.This also included consideration of the results of the SVM(Support Vector Machine)classifiers’performance and cross-device evaluation.The AI-based adaptive interface prototype has been tested and evaluated to show its merits and capabilities in terms of its usability,inclusivity and effectiveness of the interface.From the results,it was concluded that such a culture independent application was also affordable.

Remote collaborative process optimization in research and design of industrial manufacturing

In response to the impact of COVID-19,the manufacturing industry and academic industrial research have largely shifted to online or hybrid conference formats.The sudden change has posed challenges for researchers and teams to adapt.Based on the current state of online conferences,inadequate communication,disruptions during meetings,confusion and loss of meeting information,and difficulties in conducting online collaborations are observed.This paper presents a design of a real-time discussion board that combines online conferences and synchronous discussions to address the issues arising from remote collaborations in industrial research.The research demonstrates that synchronous discussions conducted within multi-team industrial collaboration teams with specific and diverse issues can better control the flow of meetings,enhance meeting efficiency,promote participant interaction and engagement,reduce information loss,and weaken the boundaries between online and offline collaboration.

ClimateCharts.net-an interactive climate analysis web platform

This article describes the conception and implementation of a web platform which uses special charts and maps for climate monitoring and analysis.At first it gives an overview of related web applications and their advantages and limitations.This is followed by a basic introduction of current technologies and methods for working with climate data,geospatial web services and visualization techniques.Finally,the implementation based on prior defined requirements is presented and its strengths and limitations are discussed.The application provides several basic charts for climate analysis,as well as a more complex one which uses a standardized visualization concept which is suitable for comparing different local climates(Walter-LiethStandard).The charts are based on different interpolated datasets with global coverage as well as data from the Global Historical Climate Network(GHCN).Overall,the application enables users to generate individual historical climate charts from the beginning of the twentieth century until present day.