Tactile Cues For Ship Bridge Operations

Current modes of conveying operational information on ship bridges are mainly in the form of visual and auditory sensory inputs. During safety critical situations, such as dynamic positioning (DP) operation, reliance on these two senses may be insufficient. In a DP operation the role of the DP operator is critical and most incidents happen due to lack of operator ́s situational awareness. Therefore exploitation of other sensory inputs in addition to visual and auditory must be investigated. This paper surveys recent research on response times of vibro-tactile, visual and auditory cues. The survey concludes that tactile cue always has shorter response time compared to other stimuli. And its combination with other cues such as visual and auditory can enhance the effectiveness of response time. Therefore new ship bridge developers should take this knowledge into account to increase design efficiency.