In order to initiate new developments of vehicle guidance and control systems which go beyond the state of the art, it appears to be worthwhile to put in front some basic facts and considerations. In particular, it makes sense to clarify how a system is structured which enables the process of vehicle guidance and control and what we can learn from human cognition in order to make use of it for the enhancement of vehicle guidance and control. In essence, this leads to an understanding of two general concepts, that of work and pertinent work systems, and that of cognition. These two concepts compose the basis for the considerations of system design which will be outlined thereafter. This article therefore will start with a discourse on the concept of work and its implications, if we consider the process of vehicle guidance and control as a work process. Subsequently, the main features of (human) cognition are outlined in order to capture its design potentials, if one makes use of introducing artificial cognition in the work process. Similar to what has been described in as the nature of work, we consider any private or professional human teleological activity serving a certain purpose as covered by the concept of work. As a consequence, this concept of work holds no matter whether the activity is done as a necessity for living or for fun, whether it is mainly a physical activity like playing tennis or an intellectual one like reading in a journal on Sunday night. In this article, the focus is on work associated with the activity of vehicle guidance and control. Certainly, professional work will play a key role in the following discussions, but by far not an exclusive one. Work is a dynamic process, the so-called work process. The work process follows a certain agenda of procedures and actions based on assessments of the current world situation and, if necessary or explicitly wanted, on incidental deliberations.
More than two third of our lifetime being awake we are involved in work processes. A natural and very plain example with only a single person involved is the process of the purposeful activity to swim in a lake while being on vacation. The purpose might be a combination of carrying out an exercise, or having some refreshment, or just having fun. Another example, which is associated to the more complex application area of vehicle guidance and control as being considered more closely in this article, driving a car to get to a certain destination in order to meet some friends or flying an airplane for the purpose of transportation of goods or passengers from one location to another. The purpose of a work process in explicit terms is what we call the work objective. There is no work process without a work objective. In professional life, the work objective mostly comes as an instruction, order or command from a different supervising agency with its own work processes, preceding the work process being considered. In certain cases, though, in particular in the private domain, the human who is carrying out the work to accomplish the work objective specifies it by himself. Besides the work objective as main input, other inputs to the work process are the:
• environmental conditions,
• information, material and energy supply.
Environmental conditions can play an important role, in particular regarding the performance of the work process.
They might affect the work process in one or the other way. For instance, in case of flying an aircraft (work process), subject to a certain mission order (work objective) atmospheric processes generate environmental conditions with physical effects on the work process which cannot be ignored. The work process also has got certain supply inputs. A typical supply input is the energy supply. This might include associated material supply. Another important supply input the work process is drawing on is information in addition to that about the work objective. This includes all available information of relevance for the work process about the surrounding real world. The accomplishment of the work objective is that what really matters in a work process. The physically effecting measures are showing up at the work process output. They are to produce the corresponding changes of the real world subject to the work objective. In that sense, the work process output can also be an act of information processing and transmission. Describing a work process means to state how it is performing, i.e. which functions are being carried out in order to comply with the work objective. Another dimension of representing an operative work scenario is the physical one, dealing with the real world entities which are supposed to be involved in the work process. We call a real world entity a work system, if it performs a work process specified by a work objective. In essence, the work system represents the components which accommodate the functions of the work process.
Thus, a work processes needs a corresponding work system. Hence, the person who is swimming in a lake as alluded to earlier in the context of a simple example for a work process represents the corresponding work system. There is always a one-toone relationship between individual work systems, work processes and work objectives. Referring to the earlier mentioned example where a person is operating a car for the purpose to move to a certain destination in order to meet some friends, the work object is the driving person as part of the real world whose location is being changed by the car ride. The change of the work object being brought about by the work process is always being brought to light by the state of the work object which may consist of a number of state variables. Here, the state variable "location" is being changed by the work process. In case of the other example mentioned earlier of flying an airplane for the purpose of transportation of goods from one location to another, the work object is nothing else but the transported goods.
The state of the work object indicates the essential part of the work state as such. For instance, state variables indicate whether the work objective is accomplished or what is the difference of the current state of the work object from what is wanted to meet the work objective. In case of the car ride it is possibly just the information about the position of the car (coinciding with the location of the car driver), which for instance might also be of interest for other work systems in the environment, then being an information supply to them. This information would be passed on to the other work systems via other work system outputs to communicate with the external world. As already mentioned, other work systems, in turn, might as well transmit information as inputs into the work system concerned (information and energy supply) and the associated work object (additional inputs of the work object). At the time the work process has been finished, the work object becomes the work end product of the work system concerned. The work end product might comply with what is wanted in the sense of the work objective. It also might not comply for any reason. Oftentimes, the work end product as a physical entity is passed on to another work system, for instance as material input. The design of work systems is the main issue of this article. It is the work domain of system engineers when defining the so-called user requirements and, based on that, the system requirements. They have to deal with the peculiarity that there are human operators as core component of work systems, usually interacting with technical devices. We make things more concrete by exemplifying the work process according to the application domain of main interest in this article (vehicle guidance and control) as that of flying an aircraft. The work system comprises two main components, the:
• operating force and as an additional, usually existing optional main component the
• operation-supporting means.
The effectiveness of the work system is completely determined by the functional contents of these components. Both the operating force and the operation-supporting means, here in particular the actively supporting equipment, have got the necessary receptor and effector devices. Thereby, the work system can interact with the physical environment including the work object and other work systems. As to the operation-supporting means receptors are typically sensors or communication receivers providing work system inputs, effectors may include communication transmitters. There is also internal interaction between the operating force and the operation-supporting means through receptors and effectors on both sides. Operation-supporting means are not mandatory for all work systems one could imagine. In the extreme case, it takes just a single human being to form a work system. Humans possess senses and means to receive the work process inputs and they also possess motor systems (effectors) to produce outputs in terms of body motions. Think of the work process of swimming in a lake. The senses of the swimming person provide the data needed to determine her/his position or to check for obstacles, for instance, and his motor systems let him move, if the energy supply is warranted.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Articleinput.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
Note: This article was sent to us by: Sidney Atkinson at 01122010
1. The basic work site settings are not part of the productive work process
All articles are property of their respective authors. Please read our Privacy Policy!
© 2009 ArticleInput.com.