Version 2.0 of the Man-Machine Design and Analysis System (MIDAS) was released in 2001. It provides tools to describe an operating environment, mission, and equipment. User-defined goals, procedures, and knowledge interact with and are modified by models of perception, memory, situation awareness, and attention and constrained by the environment. Output of simulations that demonstrate or evaluate new capabilities or answer questions posed by customers are presented graphically and visually. MIDAS has been used to model different professions (soldiers in protective gear, air traffic controllers, astronauts, nuclear power plant operators, pilots), missions (e.g., flying, target designation, underwater exploration, police dispatch) and environments (e.g., battlefields, civil airspace, ocean floor, control rooms, low earth orbit). A recent independent evaluation of MIDAS V2.0 is reviewed.

THE INTEGRATED PERFORMANCE MODELING ENVIRONMENT (IPME) The UK Centre for Human Sciences (CHS), DERA and Micro Analysis and Design have collaborated to develop a more complete environment for modeling human performance than has been available in the past. The first version of this tool was released in October 1996 and there are ongoing enhancements. In essence, we are seeking to take advantage of the base of human performance modeling technologies that have evolved over the past ten years, synthesize these technologies, and build significantly from that base. In this paper, we will discuss the base technologies (Micro Saint and Human Operator Simulator (HOS)) that have gone into IPME and then discuss some of the additional human performance modeling features that have been built into IPME to date and some that are planned.

The British Centre for Human Sciences and Micro Analysis and Design Inc. have collaborated to develop a more complete environment for modeling human performance.The Integrated Performance Modeling Environment PMw integrates and synthesizes a base of international human performance modeling technologies evolved over the past ten years into a single modeling environment. The IPME has provided the British Government a means to determine cost-effective balances between human and equipment contributions to future military system performance for use in Concept, Operations Analysis (OA), and Balance of Investment studies. Their research approach has been to develop and evaluate a research methodology designed to provide controlled progression through a cycle of human performance modeling, prediction, and model verification and utilization in both synthetic and operational environments.In this paper, we discuss the IPME architecture and human performance modeling paradigm.

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Over the past fifteen years, a set of tools has emerged for modeling human performance in complex systems that evolve around the concept of task network modeling. Task network models of human performance begin with a functional decomposition of human activity (e.g., a task analysis). Then, by adding sequencing information, timing information and information on how human activity is related to other system behaviors, a model of human performance is created. Micro Saint was the first tool to support task network modeling. However, from this basic concept, tools have emerged that incorporate first principles of human behavior such as human response to workload and performance shaping factors. This set of tools has become known as the Micro Saint “family” of human performance modeling tools. The family of tools and the types of problems they solve are the topic of this paper.