Sensor Control Effectiveness and Display Design in an Imaging System for Airborne Search and Rescue

Traditionally, search and rescue (SAR) technicians have conducted search by directly viewing the terrain below the aircraft. Defence R&D Canada is developing a multi-sensor imaging system for SAR that would replace direct inspection under low visibility conditions. The operators may orient the sensors in any direction, which combined with a narrow field-of-view may induce disorientation. In addition to detecting and discriminating objects within the sensor's field-of-view, an operator is responsible for moving the sensor in such a way as to ensure that this detection and discrimination may be carried out with similar effectiveness across the entire area that needs to be searched. The present study reports the development of a metric of coverage effectiveness, and its application to two simulation experiments. The results demonstrate a trade-off between the availability of a moving-map display necessary to preserve operator orientation, and the effectiveness of an operator's sensor coverage over a specific region. That is, sensor control effectiveness was compromised by the addition of a moving-map to the display, likely due to operators' inability to simultaneously inspect the map and move the sensor appropriately. The coverage effectiveness metric reported here would be a useful tool in the development and evaluation of “smart” automation of this sensor sweep function.

Tensor products which do not preserve operator algebras

Of late the link between operator algebras and certain tensor products has been reiterated [5]. We prove here that the projective and Haagerup tensor products of two infinite-dimensional C*-algebras is not even topologically isomorphic to an algebra of operators on a Hilbert space. Estimates are given for the distance of the tensor product from such an algebra. Nonetheless with respect to a natural multiplication the Haagerup tensor product of two algebras of Hilbert space operators is completely isometrically isomorphic to an algebra of operators on some B(ℋ).