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we've been mentioning a variety of the

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kinds of experiments that International

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Space Station the crew members perform

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and those experiments come in a wide

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range of their different scientific

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disciplines some of it very deep and

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theoretical some of it designed to learn

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more about how people can live in the

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space environment and some of it is

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demonstrating concepts for technology

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that could assist future exploration to

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deep space and today commander Kevin

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Ford performed one of those latter

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experiments you're seeing some video

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that we recorded that was a downlink to

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earlier today of Ford performing a

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European Space Agency investigation

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that's aimed at improving crew

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operations efficiency and as their

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autonomy as well joining us this morning

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to talk more about cruise which is crew

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user interface system enhancement is

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Michael Wolff a senior software engineer

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and ESA's lead and co-investigator for

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the crews experiment speaking with us

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this morning from his office at the

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european space research and Technology

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Center the Nord wig in the Netherlands

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Michael tell me about the background of

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this project and how you got involved in

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it okay a good morning Pat first and

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thanks for the chance to chat with you

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about this we our group here at ISA and

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our industrial colleagues we've been

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interested in improving the onboard user

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interface for a long time essentially

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trying to make astronauts performance

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improve and also get better there you

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use the satisfaction for when they

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actually working up there and the

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streams we've been doing this in is

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technology demonstrations say building

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block demonstrations but we're also been

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thinking same or in larger term or

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trying to establish a path towards

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building a is smart assistance a and E

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partner to actually give a more broader

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support I'd say that what we did today

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the commander session with cruise is a

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building block type of technology

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demonstration and often operations them

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or maybe a way to help understand this

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is to turn that question on its head

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what is the deficiency in the way the

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crews operate now what do you what do

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you see in the current way that they

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operate that should be improved well

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first Adam I don't think it's only

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deficiencies we do we do have some

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advantages with the electronic systems

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on board I mean we can carry less paper

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and thereby we get things a little bit

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more cost effective operations but but

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certainly one deficiency is of course

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that it takes a long time to spin in

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technologies from from ground into the

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space segments install validation and

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safety aspects has to be taken into

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account and this is this is what we're

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trying to do especially we've seen that

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for manual tasks in-flight maintenance

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task type of things the user interface

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that is provided today for for the

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astronauts is not so-called test

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transparent enough which means the user

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interface often gets in the way while

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they are doing our primary tasks say

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you're adjusting available or doing a

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repair and prepare and activity their

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ability to consult the instructions is

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hampering them from doing the actual

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work that's correct and we also seen

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that the operation the actual

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instructions for avionics task when you

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actually have to attune something deep

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down in the system you usually have the

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operations content the procedures

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separated from the flight software

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displays and one of our sub experiments

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today is to deter to go towards the

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design where we have both operations

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instructions and flight software pots in

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the same flow in the procedure something

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that is not yet available on board we've

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noticed that part of this procedure is

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to do with the use of voice activation

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and there's a piece of hardware that we

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saw in the video where the Kevin Ford

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was wearing a little headset microphone

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which is not brand new technology are

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you just trying to make better use of

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what already exists are you trying to

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develop something new I would say to a

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large extent it is has been in type of

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experiments we're spinning in from from

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the consumer market and what's available

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for us here down on ground and indeed as

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you noticed it is it's a felon normal

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microphone and headset is using their so

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but but a voice dialogue has not been

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available for truth before that has been

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other experiments our NASA colleagues

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have indeed experiment with this but

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moving from experiments towards action

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or operational interfaces has not yet

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taken place and we trying to learn more

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about this so we can based on this

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experiment we can design systems that

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are that this will actually work and I

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noticed in some of the paperwork that

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one member of your science team is

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Italian astronaut paolo nespoli anissa

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astronaut has having his point of view a

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veteran station crew members point of

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view helped you in your in your

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development for us yes it's always very

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important to have end users involved as

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astronauts involved and an Paolo and

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also his other colleagues as European

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astronaut centers for example Frank

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Levin has has helped us both in the

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development and in the testing so it's

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not only for the final test but we need

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all stakeholders astronauts and

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operations engineers to be involved

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throughout development and testing to

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get a product that we think can do the

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job that we expected to do so how did it

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go this morning Kevin Ford was working

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with in two sessions on the on the

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timeline here with a procedural display

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and then with a voice-activated

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procedure viewer tell us how today's

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work went and I I could only follow it

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the same way you did which was the voice

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loot and from video and certainly the

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paper procedure display look to go very

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there

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fine we were on time and we had the

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whole test completed we will be very

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interested in seeing the data generated

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later on it was the voice-activated

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procedure viewer that we did and that

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task was selected to be as realistic as

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possible so this was in an in-flight

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maintenance task and with in-flight

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maintenance task comes also say other

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issues and I think there was one issue

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with the tools here and that means

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overall that there was some some time

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pressure i believe and high workload on

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Kevin and a in such a situation and this

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is part of what we want to learn about

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also it is it is excellent to be able to

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do one thing to do user interaction in

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more than one way to voice and

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point-and-click but it's of course easy

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to do the most a the one that you must

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use to first so I believe we got we got

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some good they were voice commanding in

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there but we have a mixture above both

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commanding and traditional commanding so

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again when we look at the data there

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it's both the objective in this

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objective data it will be very

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interesting to see and I believe that

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Chris Hadfield is going to do a similar

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type of run for you later on right

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that's correct so thereby we we cannot

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say of course that we have a full

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statistical can do a full statistical

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analysis but with two and astronauts

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performing our experiment we will have a

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much better on the idea that only the

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ground-based experiments that we've done

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before that we are hopefully we got the

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kind of insight we need to design these

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systems so what's the next step after

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Ford and Hadfield do this you said you

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wanted to you need to look at the data

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but what will be the next step for you

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and your team yeah after analysis I I

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think we're heading towards more type of

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building block experiments for example

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having these so-called procedure you

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were on a state-of-the-art

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and also adapt its user interface to

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something that we're more used to on the

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ground this is also in cooperation with

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our NASA colleagues and the procedure

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group there we are also looking at more

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wearable system so you should not have

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to be floating back and forth to your

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laptop for any reason but you should be

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able to bring bring your equipment with

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you to your to your workplace and we

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hope we can test these things in the

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near future and of course with with

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voice which is one of the new natural

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user interfaces we hope we can implement

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a full dialogue this time we only had

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full voice dialogue this time we only

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had always commanding but the system

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itself was in a sense silent it didn't

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really speak back let's see is that the

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goal then and in the long run is are you

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trying once this is all developed and

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implemented are you trying to create a

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system where like in science fiction

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where people can talk to the computers

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and the computers talk back or you could

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say Lily you could have that science

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fiction picture a friendly hair but of

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course it's not only that you can talk

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it's also what you're talking about so

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it should it should be robust and

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resilient a partner or crew assistant

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that that can help the crew member the

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astronaut and the astronaut team to work

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together and share the tasks properly

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and give appropriate support depending

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on the individual's needs and that is

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then we've gone beyond building blocks

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and actually we'll build a system

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hopefully we have a chance to do some of

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testing for this kind of system to

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support more autonomous operations when

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ISS can be used as an analog foreign

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mission beyond low-earth orbit sounds

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great and actually I was thinking more

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of a talking to the star trek computer

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rather than how but it's the same time

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separately in principle it should work

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that to Michael I appreciate your taking

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the time to bring us up to speed on this

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its variant

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sting thank you thank you very much

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flooding able to come on like a wolf is

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a senior software engineer with the