The Midas Human Performance Model

A unique software tool for conducting human factors analyses of complex human-machine systems has been developed at NASA Ames Research Center. Called the Man-Machine Integration Design and Analysis System (MIDAS), this simulation system contains models of human performance that can be used to evaluate candidate procedures, controls, and displays prior to more expensive and time consuming hardware simulators and human subject experiments. While this tool has been successfully applied to research issues in several domains, particularly in aeronautics, a desire to expand its functionality and its ease of use has led to the construction of a new object-oriented system. This new version of MIDAS contains a substantially modified human performance model, one that is aimed at being more consistent with empirical data on human behavior and more natural for designers to apply to the analyses of complex new designs. This paper offers a summary of this new human performance model, together with justifications for some of its main components, and indicates plans for its subsequent verification and validation.