Partner in the spotlight: NLR

The Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) is a leading international research centre for aerospace in the Netherlands. Supported by its multidisciplinary expertise and research facilities, NLR provides innovative and integral solutions for the complex challenges in the aerospace sector. NLR’s activities span the full spectrum of Research Development Test & Evaluation. NLR thereby bridges the gap between research and practical applications, while working for both government and industry at home and abroad. NLR has more than 650 specialists with in-depth expertise in a range of areas within aviation.

In MEDIATOR, NLR will bring in expertise from aviation into the consortium for the purpose of cross-fertilisation, which includes experience in human-automation interaction and fatigue. NLR has a department that is fully dedicated to human factors research in aviation. Relevant research topics include human effectiveness, higher levels of automation, fatigue risk management, human-machine interaction, operator performance, mental workload, situation awareness and alertness). NLR has extensive experience in operator data collection in simulation as well as in vivo, mainly of commercial airline pilots, military fighter pilots, and air traffic controllers, but also in other (transport) domains.

To measure and study the mental state of the operator, NLR has got a broad range of specialist researchers supported by an elaborate set of human factors tools and techniques such as actigraphy, bio-mathematical models, eye tracking, heart rate (variability), electroencephalography (EEG), standardized questionnaires and rating scales, surveys, interviews, (de)briefing, and video/audio recording. If required and available, simulator/aircraft parameters and pilot performance (flight data, reaction time, and errors) can be included in our analyses.