Kairos has recently gone into a collaboration with the University of Stavanger for a Ph.D. fellowship. Mohammad Bakhshandeh is completing his Ph.D. in industrial asset management with a focus on the resilience of engineering assets and industrial systems and situation awareness. Mohammad has a long background from working in the oil and gas industry both onshore and offshore. Mohammad is completing his Ph.D. to combine his extensive experience in the industry with higher education.
This research will be in cooperation with Kairos about improving the situational awareness (SA) of operators in complex and highly dynamic systems where physical items are interactive with each other, the state of the system is changing over time, and decision-makers have to rely on various data to get better an understanding of the actual situation (e.g., advanced control room). To enhance human SA in such highly dynamic and complex systems, operators must have a better interface with the operating system to work with hidden uncertainties and unforeseen challenges. The real challenges in modern and emerging systems are such that the inherent complexity of the system, coupled with highly dynamic conditions, demand operators to be able to perceive and judge abnormal situations ahead of time, predict multiple potentials for unwanted deviations, and take proactive measures. This is especially important in terms of technical and safety integrity, as well as security, in cases where automation and digitalization generate larger potentials to take the human fully or partly "out of the loop".
From a more cognitive perspective, cooperation with Kairos focuses on developing and strengthening advanced SA through enhancing human sensitivity and vigilance to deal with systems abnormalities as a pre-condition before alarms go off. This is a necessary measure to increase the resilience of modern industrial systems when industrial digitalization and remote operations drive new industrial practices. Therefore, this research can also be quite relevant for other industrial applications, such as infrastructure, digital health, etc.
Prof. Jayantha P. Liyanage of the University of Stavanger is the main Advisor of this exciting Ph.D. project.