The US Navy Will Replace Its Touchscreen Controls With Mechanical Ones On Its Destroyers 168
The US Navy will replace the touchscreen throttle and helm controls currently installed in its destroyers with mechanical ones starting in 2020. From a report: The move comes after the National Transportation Safety Board released an accident report from a 2017 collision, which cites the design of the ship's controls as a factor in the accident. On August 21st, 2017, the USS John S. McCain collided with the Alnic MC, a Liberian oil tanker, off the coast of Singapore. The report provides a detailed overview of the actions that led to the collision: when crew members tried to split throttle and steering control between consoles, they lost control of the ship, putting it into the path of the tanker. The crash killed 10 sailors and injured 48 aboard the McCain. The report says that while fatigue and lack of training played a role in the accident, the design of the ship's control console were also contributing factors. Located in the middle of the McCain's bridge, the Ship's Control Console (SCC) features a pair of touch-screens on both the Helm and Lee Helm stations, through which the crew could steer and propel the ship. Investigators found that the crew had placed it in "backup manual mode," which removed computer-assisted help, because it allowed for "more direct form of communication between steering and the SSC."
Not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
touch screens are fragile and unreliable and should not be used for anything critical or dangerous
switches have over a century of engineering and experience behind them
that won't change because something shiny came along
if the boat had been designed in the 1970s it would probably have used light pens on CRTs
just another fad
you can't beat simplicity
Trying something new (Score:5, Insightful)
touch screens are fragile and unreliable and should not be used for anything critical or dangerous
Not correct. They are not particularly fragile or unreliable. Aircraft and even spacecraft are using them to good effect. The problem with them is that it's too easy for lazy engineers or cheap management to treat them as a one size fits all solution to everything. They work very well in some circumstances and quite poorly in others.
switches have over a century of engineering and experience behind them
So we should never use anything new because we have something old that already works? How's the view from the cave? Still enjoying your flip phone with it's physical buttons? Switches are a great technology and in many use cases they are a better choice than a touch screen. But not universally so, even for critical systems. Sometimes you have to try something new to find out where it works and where it doesn't. I've argued elsewhere that touchscreens are being overused but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use them. There are some engineering problems where they are the ideal technology. Use the best tool, not just the one you are most familiar with.
Re:Trying something new (Score:5, Insightful)
touch screens are fragile and unreliable and should not be used for anything critical or dangerous
Not correct. They are not particularly fragile or unreliable.
I disagree with OP about being fragile or unreliable, but I do agree with them being potentially dangerous. Anyone who has driven a car with a touchscreen radio will have experienced how much more difficult it is to control the radio on the screen than it is with traditional tactile switches and dials. With ye olde car radios one can place their hand on the dial or buttons without taking their eyes off the road. Touchscreens require more visual confirmation from the user than tactile switches.
Re:Trying something new (Score:5, Interesting)
Manufacturers (some, most, all?) have come up with a solution to this touchscreen madness by putting frequently used functions into steering wheel controls. In my experience, this has included volume, shifting through inputs like AM / FM / CD / Satellite, and station changes. It kind of makes me wonder why they don't just put those simple switches back on the head-units themselves.
Re:Trying something new (Score:5, Interesting)
touch screens are fragile and unreliable and should not be used for anything critical or dangerous
Not correct. They are not particularly fragile or unreliable.
I disagree with OP about being fragile or unreliable, but I do agree with them being potentially dangerous. Anyone who has driven a car with a touchscreen radio will have experienced how much more difficult it is to control the radio on the screen than it is with traditional tactile switches and dials. With ye olde car radios one can place their hand on the dial or buttons without taking their eyes off the road. Touchscreens require more visual confirmation from the user than tactile switches.
They are fragile and unreliable, when compared to the previous controls. I don't know exactly what these screens were, but most touch screens don't work well under many conditions... when your hands are wet, or dirty, or if you are wearing gloves, etc. So in that sense, they are unreliable under certain conditions. And the same logic applies to fragility - they are most likely more rugged than my cell phone, but certainly more fragile than the previous mechanical controls.
As you mention though, they are more dangerous. I dread the day I will buy a new car that doesn't have mechanical controls. Mine is a 2007, and the controls for stereo (volume, etc) are mechanically driven (but are really digital underneath). I can adjust things without looking away from the road. No button-punching to turn it up/down, or even worse a screen slider. Same goes for the AC/Heat fan. For instance, it's nice to be able to turn off the AC after the car has shut off, to save some cranking amps on the battery the next morning. I'll have to find the right mix of tech (e.g. mp3 capable) with usability (no touch screens) for things that need to be controlled while driving. Or maybe I'll just go be a destroyer captain. :)
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Yep. And I'm pretty sure glass screens break easier than big metal switches. Whoever is making touch screens for giant machines that can kill, just stop it. Leave the controls as mechanical as possible. All car enthusiasts (see Car and Driver website) hate when things are more electronic/fake and less mechanical/real. Driving a thing requires a "feel". Giant boats and planes kill people because of lack of accurate "feel".
Anyway, I drive a car. My infiniti also has too many buttons and not enough dials. But,
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Re:Trying something new (Score:5, Interesting)
Touchscreens may not be particularly fragile in civilian use, and yet a destroyer is a warship that can be reasonably be expected to be fired upon by an enemy. Shock from projectiles hitting the ship is more likely to break controls made of glass than those made of metal.
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Re:Trying something new (Score:5, Informative)
" Aircraft and even spacecraft are using them to good effect."
these are relatively mundane and controlled environments, what they call "shirtsleeve". This story is about a warship.
"So we should never use anything new because we have something old that already works? "
Again, we aren't talking about a new version of Solitaire. We shouldn't use something new just because it is new, correct.
"How's the view from the cave? "
I can see all your strawmen and logical fallacies from there.
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The corollary to that is should we always use something new because it's new...see how that works. Shall we look at the pharmaceuticals industry and see how the latest and greatest compares to the old drug? Hmmm...in many instance new is no better and in fact can be worse.
The point is use what works. Whether that's new or old. Just because it's new does not make it better.
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Damn, you're dumb.
Mechanical controls are infinitely more reliable, responsive, and serviceable.
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Not a criticism, just curiosity: for anyone who designs hardware, what is a typical useful lifetime of a screen in millions of touches/actuations versus a physical switch?
It seems like the lack of moving parts ought to allow you to make it physically last longer (although that's not the same at all as reliability in operation--grease, moisture, etc.).
My original HTC G1 still works fine.
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> Still enjoying your flip phone with it's physical buttons?
Yes. Yes, I am. I'll need to get a new one (just because a tool fits its niche well doesn't mean it is constructed to last forever), but I have no particular need for a smart phone. My desktop computer works just fine for streaming video, and books work even without a recharger nearby.
Whether we "need" to use the latest shiny toy or not ... depends on the person. There are bread makers, toaster ovens, mixers, juicers, any number of single-us
This was a UX design issue not a touchscreen issue (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This was a UX design issue not a touchscreen is (Score:5, Insightful)
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Controls for basic functions like changing the speed and direction of the ship should not be splitting, combining, or moving anywhere, period.
So if that station gets wiped out, everyone should just bend over and begin kissing their own arses goodbye?
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Re: This was a UX design issue not a touchscreen i (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Why not fly-by-wire physical controls that synchronize themselves between stations unless one is wholly disabled? Some extra blinkenlight to indicate when it's being actuated from the other console might help alert people to things being changed where they might not otherwise notice.
Re:This was a UX design issue not a touchscreen is (Score:5, Interesting)
Service news website USNI reported that Rear Adm Bill Galinis, who oversees US Navy ship design, said the control systems were "overly complex" because shipbuilders had little official guidance on how they should work. As a result, he said, the control systems on different ships had little in common, so sailors often were not sure where key indicators, such as a ship's heading, could be found on screens.
It wasn't just the touchscreen, or a bad UI. It was inconsistency across the fleet making it difficult to train sailors. Granted, a good UI would make things easier to learn.
Re:This was a UX design issue not a touchscreen is (Score:5, Interesting)
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Touch screens are seen as "high tech" whereas mechanical controls are seen as dated, so there is a push to implement such things even when they aren't a good fit for the job.
A well implemented touchscreen can be good, as you can make it dynamic depending on the current needs, rather than single purpose mechanical controls - but this depends on a good well tested implementation, and circumstances where the advantages of this approach are useful.
Re: Not surprising (Score:2)
You can make it dynamic, thus subject to the whim of the designer, and a puzzle for the person using it.
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Glass cockpits in airliners have proven themselves better than the mechanicals that the replaced. There's no good argument remaining that touch screens are a good part of a complex control system.
But airliners still have mechanical controls for the most important bits: the stick or yoke, the throttle, the flaps. When the computer manages the throttle (as is normal for most of the flight) it mechanically moves the levers around, so that they always indicate correctly. Why they didn't stick with that patte
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Not in an airbus starting with A320.
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Really? That's nuts. I knew Airbus had replaced the yoke with a stupid "side stick", but that's going too far.
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This has been working fine for over 30 years.
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"OTOH, physical controls were just dismal for things like inputting all the data and calculations for a flight plan. You might think "how could a keyboard be worse than a touchscreen for data entry", but they managed to be. Physical controls are particularly bad for menu-driven systems, which is much of how you interact with any complex control system."
Bezel keys and edge-positioned menu entries work quite well., especially when they are positioned and stacked to efficiently access the most common aspects o
Tax payers (Score:5, Insightful)
And how much extra did those fancy touch screens cost us? How much now to retro-fit?
Must be nice to not have any concept of money.
Re:Tax payers (Score:5, Insightful)
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less moving parts
That is definitely not of the benefits of automating your controls...
Re:Tax payers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Seems like a system like that could really use a way to recall all the controls to a given station and annunciation of said changes.
Re:Tax payers (Score:5, Informative)
Good grief (Score:5, Informative)
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But it worked so well on Star Trek! And it's great on cars these days. Not distracting or dangerous at all.
Ironically there was an episode of ST:TNG that showed pretty clearly why a reconfigurable touch panel is a horrible idea for critical things. Worf was unable to return fire in a battle because the panel was reconfigured in a way that was unfamiliar to him and he took too long to find the control he needed.
Re: Good grief (Score:2)
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Sounds like they had Michael Okuda [wikipedia.org] design the controls. The set designers for the original Star Trek used the best human-factors research available at the time to design the bridge of the Enterprise: namely, physical controls with haptic feedback (though it wasn't yet called haptic; it was just clicks). Star Trek: The Next Generation went in a different direction.
Personal note: I used to have a heart-rate monitor made by Polar, which included a chest strap and a wrist display and control unit. (Bought in 1
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But it worked so well on Star Trek!
Not if you wore a red shirt...
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What happened to their brilliant idea for using Xbox controllers?
https://www.military.com/daily... [military.com]
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Do military engineers not understand haptic feedback?
There has not been haptic feedback on ships for well over a century. Steering was done with a wheel, you just turn it and let it go if you want; it was an indicator of what angle you want the rudder. Speed was controlled via a "telegraph" that sent the desired speed to the guys in the engine room.
It's the touchscreens! (Score:5, Interesting)
and me who thought the collisions and near collisions were caused by widespread incompetence of the navy officers who are only there for a short stopover in their career path!
https://www.navytimes.com/news... [navytimes.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Re: It's the touchscreens! (Score:2)
And here most of us thought it was an electronic warfare skirmish. Better to brush it under the table as a UI problem. But good grief, get the sailors some reliable manual controls!
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Yeah, it was the Russians. That never gets old.
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and me who thought the collisions and near collisions were caused by widespread incompetence of the navy officers who are only there for a short stopover in their career path!
https://www.navytimes.com/news... [navytimes.com]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Looks like a combination of officers punching career tickets and a constant war-time stance that leaves no room for training or even routine maintenance(they had to cannibalize parts from a navigation display in the skipper's cabin and the hatch leading to the barth that flooded couldn't even be secured). Reading some of the articles about those collisions makes you wonder how the Navy would actually fare if we were to get into an actual struggle match in the Strait of Hormuz.
Too many touch screens (Score:5, Insightful)
The US Navy will replace the touchscreen throttle and helm controls currently installed in its destroyers with mechanical ones starting in 2020.
Touchscreens are useful things but I think the enthusiasm for them by manufacturers has gone well beyond what they really are good for. They are particularly terrible for tasks where your attention needs to be elsewhere like driving because the proprioception [wikipedia.org] required to use them takes up a large amount of our situational awareness. Just how our brains are wired. It's much less demanding of our attention to turn a dial without needing to look directly at it than it is to visually locate a spot on a touchscreen extend our arm into space guided by our vision and confirm the correct action was taken.
Not to mention that a lot of touchscreens are just terrible. The one in my Chevy Bolt EV is a piece of crap compared to the one on my smartphone.
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They are particularly terrible for tasks where your attention needs to be elsewhere like driving
that's true, but i don't think operating these ships is like driving a car. You operate the throttle by someone telling you what number to set it to. you operate the helm by adjusting a readout to match the heading someone is yelling at you. You aren't looking out a window and reacting. you are looking at a screen (or other indicator). It kinda makes sense for touch screen imo.
Just an example (Score:2)
that's true, but i don't think operating these ships is like driving a car.
No you are quite right they are not the same. I don't pretend to know if touchscreens are a good idea or not in these ships. I was merely trying to provide an example of where they are not an optimal solution. It wouldn't shock me if they weren't really ideal on a ship either.
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As usual, there are extenuating factors, like the lack of experienced crew members. Most Navy vessels are running on perpetual skeleton crews for the past decade or two, for political reasons -- to avoid reinstating the draft. Predictably, the number of fatal accidents has spiked.
Maybe if the ship had been fully crewe
Let's not be hasty now (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
That aside you need to have both kinds of controls. These days on a ship or a plane those quadrant levers don't hook up to mechanical cables -- they are just inputs to some embedded software somewhere. If there is any feedback it is simulated.
The reason for mechanical controls: simplicity and haptic feedback. Most important in times of stress.
The reason for touch panel: Flexibility. If the bridge is on fire you could access the controls from other places on the ship.
Re:Let's not be hasty now (Score:4, Insightful)
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Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
Are you kidding? Consoles literally explode anytime anything goes wrong with a Starfleet ship.
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Re:Let's not be hasty now (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
I really do think Star Trek-type sci-fi played a part in this: this notion in the military that any glorious future had to be something Star Trek-like, with LCARS control panels and voice activated computers. I always thought that was a silly notion, even on the show. Humans are tactile creatures, and we have loads of evidence that removing tactile controls is counter productive. For example, the earliest F-16's had a stationary control stick, completely pressure-sensitive. General Dynamics had to remove them because pilots were injuring their wrists trying to yank them around during maneuvers. There's tactile "give" in the stick now.
I think it was during Star Trek: Insurrection that producers finally gave a nod towards reality when they had a manual control pop up during combat (which was essentially a joystick).
Lockheed also wanted a nearly all-touchscreen cockpit for the F-35 (only the stick and throttle would be manual), and pilots rebelled against that too.
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I always just assumed in Star Trek that future technology had solved the touchscreen problems.
Like the surface would change its tactile feel so you feel the edges of buttons and such. Maybe some localized tractor effect right over the screen surface.
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I always just assumed in Star Trek that future technology had solved the touchscreen problems.
Like the surface would change its tactile feel so you feel the edges of buttons and such. Maybe some localized tractor effect right over the screen surface.
Based on them having the technology of the holodeck and holographs having force and mass behind them- creating a tactile surface on a control panel would appear to be a simple technology to master.
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Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
I don't trust the navigation controls of any ship that gets stuck in the Delta quadrant. Perhaps if they had had proper switches the series would never have needed to exist.
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Also...
Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
NASA 1960's - two men all you need to pilot a spaceship with anaolog controls
SpaceFleet 24th Century - 200+ men needed to pilot a spaceship with touchscreens.
I know which controls seem more efficient to me.
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Touch panels always seemed to work just fine on Starship Voyager.
Voyager is equipped with inertial dampeners. The only dampening at sea is having a bigger ship.
That aside you need to have both kinds of controls. These days on a ship or a plane those quadrant levers don't hook up to mechanical cables -- they are just inputs to some embedded software somewhere. If there is any feedback it is simulated.
The reason for mechanical controls: simplicity and haptic feedback. Most important in times of stress.
Always hated touch screens on boats. Try using one when you are being knocked around.
The reason for touch panel: Flexibility. If the bridge is on fire you could access the controls from other places on the ship.
This is not an argument for touch panels.
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Voyager is equipped with inertial dampeners. The only dampening at sea is having a bigger ship.
Actually, active roll stabilization is a thing in the ship industry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
https://www.marineinsight.com/... [marineinsight.com]
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Using touch screens for the helm was always something I found really silly about start trek. Funny, Paris had the right idea and put manual controls, albeit goofy retro ones in the Delta Flyer because he preferred them over a touchscreen.
I didn't think the real navy would have to learn this lesson. But better its on the books I guess, it will prevent fools from trying it in the future. Touchscreens are great and have their uses but are terrible as a way to drive or pilot a vehicle.
Smart move (Score:2)
Some things should be as direct and concrete as possible, no virtualization, no computer assistance. Otherwise people tend to get too little feedback and do not really understand the effects of their actions anymore.
Re:Smart move (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer assistance in necessary for anything sufficiently complex. That doesn't mean you need a touchscreen.
Airliners normally have the computer managing the throttle for most of a flight. The window between overspeed stall and underspeed stall is tiny on a modern airliner when cruising, and it's best to let the computer do it. However, it's still a physical throttle level - the computer just mechanically moves it around (and the button to disconnect computer control is on the throttle lever itself).
This was a bit of a different issue. The Navy got clever with having one station to drive the ship in the long boring stretches, with the ability to flip to the usual multiple stations when things got tricky. They could have still done that mechanically, if they really wanted to, but that wasn't the real problem here. The problem was that the off-shift didn't drill the process.
Navies around the world were very clear on this concept for centuries: if you might need to do it under combat conditions, or similar stress, everyone practices it regularly. The US Navy has seemingly abandoned this idea, at least for the off-shifts, and it has resulted in multiple tragedies.
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Root Cause:Poor Understanding of Ship's Operation (Score:2)
Not Touch Screens. The "Subject" of TFA is somewhat misleading.
I scanned the full report (the link is in the article but if you don't want to search for it: https://www.ntsb.gov/investiga... [ntsb.gov]) and it seems to me that this accident wasn't an issue with the touch screens but the poor use case understanding of the functions on the bridge of the ship for the design of the systems was being made.
What really caught my eye was the end of the summarizing statement noting that the steering mode that was active at th
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This entire incident could have been avoided a) if the crew had not put the navigation into "manual bypass" mode,
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LoB
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So now they will be putting two physical "wheels" on the bridge so that when two sailors are yanking at each wheel the strongest is in control. Brilliant and so much better than the idiotic software solution they accepted which allows simultaneous touch screen control. Surely they have solved the problem.
LoB
What you describe is much better than what happened. Each would know what the problem was and communication is instant. But the wheels would not necesserily be linked together that way, so it might work more like the touchscreens. The wheel is not the advantage, really, the tactile feedback is the advantage.
In emergencies, people look at the danger, not at the touchscreen. For safety, all that must be done by touch.
Touchscreens are great for setup, when there is planty of time, though.
Images of accident damage (Score:2)
You can see the images of accident damages on the BBC article [bbc.com].
Not the firs time our Navy has had computer issues (Score:2)
Does no one remember past 'computer problems' causing [gcn.com] issues for our Navy? This is the current one. Really not just an interface problem, but training issue - sailors should have rehearsed maneuvering and stressful situations. Though some blame the commander for not being on the bridge during the maneuvers, and some sailors I know agree. The captain should be there.
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Captains need sleep too.
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Sleep when you're docked. Unless you've got supreme confidence in your crew and your #2.
But the Captain is ultimately responsible.
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The CO being asleep in his cabin was the Fitzgerald.
The McCain, both the CO and the XO(the Second) were on the bridge.
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No tactility in touchscreens (Score:2)
Manufacturers of equipment I use on the job keep trying to go touch screen. We "upgraded" one piece and there was no alternative to the touch screen. We all hate it. It slows us down because we can't operate the controls by feel like on the old hardware.
I look forward to the Star Trek episode (Score:2)
âoeYes, Captain!â
âoeWhy did we just eject the warp core?!â
âoeI told you this was a bad user interface!â
Air France A330 crash (Score:2)
2 pilots both using the controls doing different things which gave no feedback as to what the other pilot was doing.
This seems to be an increasingly common failure mode with drive/fly/sail by wire systems, touch screen or not.
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The airplane actually told them about input. Both pilots ignored it. They have completely disregarded their training. What exactly gives you the delusion that they wouldn't have try to overpower each other with a linked yoke? The idiots would probably think that the hydraulic boosters have failed.
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The plane did tell them what was going on. It was just that the Captain on the flight was chronically sleep deprived, and had gone to take a nap, while the two co-pilots had been out the night before the flight partying, getting drunk and high, impairing their mental functioning.
But somehow, that part always gets skipped over by all the junkies on this site.
How did the sailors die? (Score:2)
Judging by the photos, the damage to the ship wasn't THAT substantial?
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I don't know, but people have died falling over in the street due to head injury. I imagine a good whack against a steel bulkhead would do it too or falling down the very steep steps you get in military ships.
Re:How did the sailors die? (Score:4, Informative)
Could someone explain how the 10 sailors died? Judging by the photos, the damage to the ship wasn't THAT substantial?
If I recall, the ship began taking on water in a crew sleeping quarter. The rest of the crew did as they were trained and sealed the compartment to prevent the ship from sinking. Unfortunately, that also trapped 10 sailors in the flooding compartment...
Touch me (Score:2)
they must have watched Voyager (Score:2)
Touchscreens are Slower than {Physical Controls (Score:2)
Now replace Windows (Score:2)
Is the US Navy still using Windows? I bet they are. If that [gcn.com] is still true then someone needs to walk the plank.
Touchscreens are OK for some applications (Score:2)
but for some other they are fucking not OK at all. Like for instance in all those situations when you need to look where your car goes, or your other means of transportation. Or any other situation in which you need to have a high awareness of your surroundings instead of looking at where your fingers are touching a uniform slab of glass with icons, squares and other objects sometimes smaller than the radius of curvature of your fingertips.
wonder what Scotty would say about this (Score:2)
Convenience (Score:2)
Touchscreens are not for the convenience of the users. The are for the convenience of the programmers. And, the "beancounters".
"Try guiding a bicycle with a touchscreen!" 8-}
Psychopaths in charge on the high seas. (Score:2)
I was sometimes on the bridges of navy ships underway.
Let me tell you they don't get enough sleep 1st of all.
Second they considered every moment to be a valuable training opportunity. So the only time I didn't see the ship in "backup manual mode" was when someone who was tired knew that they could flip the switch and take a nap without getting noticed. I always suspected that deep down inside it was just a good opportunity to get their rocks off making someone miserable. I saw guys standing up and pou