Status and further plans for the Halden project MMS activities

The Halden Reactor Project is a joint undertaking of nuclear organizations in 19 countries sponsoring a jointly financed research programme under the auspices of the OECD NEA. The programme is renewed every third year. The three main research areas at the Halden Project are: Fuels-, Materials- and Man-Machine Systems (MMS) research. The MMS research addresses issues related to human-machine interaction in computerized control rooms as well as the development and test of new technology related to safe and reliable operation of nuclear power plants. The MMS research at the Halden Project is closely tied with experimental work in two laboratories constituting what is now called the MTO-labs (MTO=Man-Technology-Organization). The new MTO-lab building was opened in the spring 2004. One of the laboratories is the nuclear simulator-based Halden Man-Machine Laboratory (HAMMLAB). The other laboratory is called the Halden Virtual Reality Centre (HVRC). The paper first introduces the new MTO-lab and outlines Halden's capabilities of perform MMS research. Furthermore the paper discusses three selected topics addressed within the current Halden MMS programme focusing on our approach to obtain data for human reliability assessment, the work on design and evaluation of innovative human system interfaces and our work on integrated wearable computing technologies for field operators. A short overview of our plans for future research as part of the international Halden Reactor Project concludes the paper. (author)