AV Technology - February/March 2009 - (Page 41) To the untrained eye, a command and control center may look like an outtake from an episode of “Integrators Gone Wild.” ut far from being technology chaos, many command/control centers with their banks of displays assembled into towering videowalls, DLP projection cubes, multiple desktop computer screens, control consoles, track lighting, and curvilinear desks have been carefully constructed. Its elements and the manner in which they’re laid out are likely the product of deliberate asset selection, integration, and placement designed to ensure that the space lives up to its name. Nerve centers and communications hubs for organizations as diverse as utilities, municipalities, telecom companies, pipeline operators, and the military, command/control centers are becoming essential assets. Often manned 24/7 by operators who must monitor, distill, and act upon real-time information, they’re built to allow personnel to interpret a smorgasbord of data, images, video, and audio on the fly. Advanced AV and IT gear plays an essential role. But if it’s not carefully selected and properly integrated into the space, taking into account how multi-tasking users process information and factors limiting that ability, even the most sophisticated technology won’t allow command/control centers to perform optimally. HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING Take the most visible, and perhaps critical, element of a command/control center: the display component. To effectively transmit information to operators, displays must conform to the specific environment. “Anyone can purchase a bunch of displays, gang them together and call the result a display wall,” says Sean LaNeve, director of the Control Room Group of AVI-SPL, a Tampa, FL-based AV systems integrator. “They have to be in the right number, size, and placement so they can be readily seen. You have to understand what operators are going to be looking at.” That’s where human factors engineering (HFE) comes into play. An approach that considers how people interface with technology, HFE seeks to tailor that technology to environments in which that interaction is elemental. In designing a command/control center, HFE can be used to guide selection B The SunGuide ITS Traffic Management Center (TMC) oversees the operation of the Miami-Dade County Freeway Traffic Management System on a 24/7 basis using a 10- by 31-foot monitoring display wall, allowing flexible and interactive view of more than 40 video sources. february | march 2009 | AV TECHNOLOGY | 41
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