Untethered Workspaces: A Zones Concept Towards Supporting Operator Movements in Control Rooms

Within industrial domains there is a need for control room operators to be in constant contact with the different processes they are responsible for controlling. With this responsibility comes the need to constantly be near their workstations in order to monitor, diagnose and quickly troubleshoot issues presented. These workstations, however, restrict operators in control rooms from moving freely within the control room itself, such as between their own and their colleague's workstations since they cannot interact with the system from a distance. These systems also restrict those operators who need to continuously enter the control room from the plant/factory floor since interacting with process graphics requires them to remove all of their specialized equipment every time (e.g. large bulky safety gloves). We therefore present a concept for control room operators that supports their untethering from dedicated workstations, providing them with the ability to interact in a more flexible way.