Psychophysiological evaluation of seafarers to improve training in maritime virtual simulator

Over the years, safety in maritime industries has been reinforced by many state-of-the-art technologies. However, the accident rate hasn't dropped significantly with the advanced technology onboard. The main cause of this phenomenon is human errors which drive researchers to study human factors in the maritime domain. One of the key factors that contribute to human performance is their mental states such as cognitive workload and stress. In this paper, we propose and implement an Electroencephalogram (EEG)-based psychophysiological evaluation system to be used in maritime virtual simulators for monitoring, training and assessing the seafarers. The system includes an EEG processing part, visualization part, and an evaluation part. By using the processing part of the system, different brain states including cognitive workload and stress can be identified from the raw EEG data recorded during maritime exercises in the simulator. By using the visualization part, the identified brain states, raw EEG signals, and videos recorded during the maritime exercises can be synchronized and displayed together. By using the evaluation part of the system, an indicative recommendation on ""pass"", ""retrain"", or ""fail"" of the seafarers' performance can be obtained based on the EEG-based cognitive workload and stress recognition. Detailed analysis of the demanding events in the maritime tasks is provided by the system for each seafarer that could be used to improve their training. A case study is presented using the proposed system. EEG data from 4 pilots were recorded when they were performing maritime tasks in the simulator. The data are processed and evaluated. The results show that one pilot gets a ""pass"" recommendation, one pilot gets a ""retrain"" recommendation, and the other two get ""fail"" results regarding their performance in the simulator.