[Excerption from T-time Vol.13 / 2006.6]

Engineering for Society
- Creation of safety and security systems for human life -


We interviewed Professor Kazuo Furuta, professor of the Design Initiative for Society, Department of Systems Innovation, and Department of Quantum Engineering and Systems Science, asking for his advice to students aiming for engineering fields.

Professor Kazuo Furuta Head of the Department, Department of Quantum Engineering and Systems Science Design Initiative for Society, Department of System Innovation

Q: What is your research field?
My research field is Cognitive Systems Engineering. I have been studying to understand mechanisms of human thinking and behavior, and then to develop safety and security systems. I aim to clarify human factors in occurrence of accidents by analyzing human activities and cooperation process in air traffic control rooms or nuclear power stations, where many people are engaged in.

Q: How does it differ from Cognitive Engineering?
Cognitive Engineering, typified by virtual reality, and Cognitive Systems Engineering, which I am involved in, cannot clearly be distinguished, because both of them have an objective in common: understanding of human behavior. General image of the two, however, is different: While Cognitive Engineering acts as an interface presenting information within a computer to people, Cognitive Systems Engineering focuses on actual working environments, which enables to establish more practical systems.

Q: What made you start your current research?
Originally, I had studied nuclear engineering. After the Chelnovyl accident in 1986, researches were actively conducted on human factors to clarify causal association between human errors and accidents. Artificial intelligence boom at the time also inspired me to get involved in Cognitive Systems Engineering. Design of systems to be used under the situation where many people interact each other is so much complicated and not easily be done, but I thought challenging those difficulties is interesting.

Q: Could you explain your research method in detail?
Concretely speaking, my research method is called “human modeling”, which is to model the relationship between human thoughts and behavior by on-site observation and analysis. We aim at modeling human behavior to clarify human factors in occurrence of accidents with cooperation of operators working at nuclear power stations and air traffic control rooms by analyzing their various behaviors when handling real situations in their working place or a replica simulator. Also, we have been developing design tools for systems that can prevent large-scale accidents by simulating results of human modeling using computers. Modeling their behavior is not impossible, because the operators working at complex working environments such as nuclear power stations and air traffic control rooms are highly-trained and have certain patterns in their behavior when dealing with real situations. On the contrary, modeling ordinary people is quite difficult, because their behavior when driving a car varies a lot, for instance.

Q: What is the attractive feature of your research?
In the field of so-called artificial intelligence, behavior analysis is conducted mainly under ideal circumstances. Meanwhile, Cognitive Systems Engineering does it in realistic environment surrounding us. Analyzing behavior in real environment, which we call “context”, has the possibility to be applied to construction of security systems that prevent accidents in our actual living environment. This is a major attractive feature of Cognitive Systems Engineering.

Q: On the contrary, what is difficult?
Our research is often pointed out not scientific. Only a small number of sample cases are often available, because exactly the same event hardly happens in the real world. Besides, in human behavior in occurrence of accidents, interpersonal transaction is involved and social psychological factors significantly affect. In addition, people have learning abilities. These elements prevent data acquisition to secure repeatability, resulting in insufficient scientific testing.

Q: In closing, could you give a message to students aiming for engineering?
Engineering used to be associated with manufacturing of hardware. Future engineering, however, has to be utilized in development not only of hardware but also of sophisticated software allowing comfortable life, as well as in social field including interpersonal interaction. Therefore, I would like you to have a broad view and aspirations beyond the conventional sense of engineering.

For more information, please visit the website of
Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory
URL: http://www.cse.q.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

Contact：
Global Ware Project
Center for Innovation in Engineering Education
School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo
e-mail:
morimura ＠ t-adm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Tel: +81-3-5841-6044; +81-3-5841-7549