History: TNO Soesterberg
TNO Soesterberg
On May 15, 1949, Defence questions about nocturnal perception capacity led to the establishment of the Observation Working Group within the then National Defence Research Organisation TNO (RVO) under Dr. M(aarten).A. Bouman. That was the starting point for research into night vision, depth vision, colour vision, glare, retinal burning, screens, etc. In 1953 the investigation of a second sense, the ear, was started (e.g. hearing damage, hearing protection, noise control, and speech intelligibility of radio connections).
Because ‘seeing at low light levels’ is not only important in the dark, but also in command centres and in navigation and fire control centres, the visuological research was expanded to more applied lighting technical work. For example, complaints about fatigue among radar personnel could be traced to poor lighting conditions, reading tests were carried out with plot material for plot boards, and advice was issued for the design of command posts and control panels.
Visuology and audiology formed the basis of what is nowadays called ergonomics, the study of people about their environment.
The working group was first housed in the Physics Laboratory of the University of Utrecht. From 1951, they rented part of the National Aerospace Centre’s Health Centre in Soesterberg. In 1956, a barrack was erected awaiting one’s building on the neighbouring Kampweg 5 site.
Institute for Perception (IZF)
The Working Group on Perception received the status of TNO Institute in 1956: The TNO Institute for Perception (IZF-TNO) with Maarten Bouman as director. In that year the first psychologist was employed. The research broadened into the processing of human information such as the interpretation of Morse signals, the assessment of aerial photographs, the perception of sonar signals and the accuracy of probability estimates.
Sensory physiology, ergonomics and neurophysiology were the most important areas of research at IZF. The research areas were expanded later with traffic behaviour (1969), thermo-physiology such as the heat and moisture balance of soldiers with protective clothing (1970), equilibrium of combat pilots and naval personnel (1986), cognitive psychology including mental stress (1986), training and education including simulation (1998), and group functioning (1998).
Optimisation of information processing by humans belonged to the expertise of the institute from the start. However, it was given a new dimension by advancing automation and innovative information and communication technology (ICT). Numerous assignments concerned the exchange of information between equipment and operator. The question was also what the human cognitive abilities were when designing tasks and procedures in a work situation with automatic systems and computers. What could people mentally manage? How much effort is involved? How long could they perform? What would they do in the event of a lack of time? How did they assess uncertainties? Ultimately the research was also about how a complex system functioned as a combination of operators, automatic systems and computers. These questions and the research belonged to the field of system ergonomics.
TNO-IZF was the most interdisciplinary part of the National Defence Research Organisation TNO and probably of the entire TNO. Among the researchers, psychologists, physicists, engineers and doctors could be found. The institute initially focused on sensory physiology and perception psychology research. One of the first assignments was about fatigue among radar personnel. The researchers traced the complaints back to the room illumination. A series of projects followed including the one about the design of a ship’s bridge.
Housing
In 1957, a 1.5-hectare site was purchased at the Kampweg, Soesterberg. It lasted until 1962 before the development of the set of requirements for a new building started. At the beginning of 1967, construction started. Mid-October 1968, the TNO workforce moved into the new building (Mfl 3.1; 2800 m2; 65 workplaces). The building included:
- an optical aisle of 50 meters in length,
- workshops for instrument making,
- an independently based wing with
- three ‘soft’ acoustic measurement rooms,
- a measuring room with variable acoustics,
- and a dead (anechoic) room.
The air treatment installation for these audio measuring rooms had to meet stringent requirements; the TNO-TPD colleagues advised on this aspect.
On April 25, 1969, in the presence of HRH Prince Bernhard, the new building (Kampweg 5) was officially put into use by the State Secretary of Defence A.E.M. Duynstee. The opening operation consisted of pronouncing the numbers 0 to 9, which were subsequently made visible with a speech recognition device.
In 1988, the building was expanded with a new wing which again replaced a series of temporary barracks.
The renovation of the 1968 building part was completed in 2007.
Spin-off research
Defence research produced the necessary spin-off which could lead to contract research for the civilian sector. Of all TNO laboratories, the IZF (later called TNO Human Factors (TM)) was the institute most involved in non-military research assignments. Between 1968 and 1988, non-military research assignments attributed to a quarter of the institute’s turnover. In the 1990s, this percentage even rose to almost forty per cent.
For example, research into the acoustic qualities of community rooms and concert halls was a spin-off from audiological research into the speech intelligibility of communication connections. The results of the ergonomic studies were also useful for civilian purposes, and this also applied to road safety research. The IZF collaborated with the Institute for Road Safety Research (SWOV) and the TNO Institute for Road Transport. Almost all traffic signs and road markings along Dutch roads have been designed with the assistance of TNO-TM.
Human Factors Institute (TM)
In 1994, the Institute for Perception TNO changed its name to TNO Human Factors (TNO-TM). In those years, the institute had around 125 employees, including 60 to 65 academics. In 2005, the Health Center (NLRGC), a research department of the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR), was housed at TNO-TM.
From 2005 to 2010, the official institute’s name was TNO Behaviour, Training and Performance as part of the TNO Defence and Security group of institutes. In practice, the name Human Factors Research Institute (HFRI) shortened later to Human Factors (HF) was used.
Research into human equilibrium and orientation
Initially, the investigation of human equilibrium and orientation was of interest to the Royal Army because of the transport of soldiers in closed vehicles. The Royal Netherlands Navy (seasickness) and the Air Force (disorientation of combat pilots) followed in this research. Motion sickness, seasickness and space sickness are motion diseases with nausea as the main symptom. For a long time, it was thought that all these diseases had to do with the shaking of the balance organ located in our middle ear. It was, however, not so straightforward.
The brain continuously wants to keep track of three things about the head or the body: does the body turn around a corner, does it move and how is the body oriented to gravity? Together with the balance organ, the eyes provide information that is necessary to keep us in a balanced situation. Then there is the sense of position, which provides information about the position of the limbs in addition to what the eyes and the balancing organ have already registered about the head’s position. If we just walk the brain can predict the expected movements of our body. However, it can go wrong as soon as we take a seat in a vehicle. Discrepancies may then arise between the information of eyes, balance organs, and sense of position. The eyes see the straight line of the road, but the balance organ signals a rise or fall, or a sharp turn. There are also information differences in an aircraft or spacecraft. The movements and thus the information differences are even greater on or in a ship. The brain gets confused by conflicting information. The result is nausea or worse.
The researchers also experimented with remedies against motion diseases. This is why André Kuipers wore a vibration vest designed by TNO during his stay in the International Space Station (ISS) in 2004. There were little vibrators in it, much like the vibrating function of a cell phone. Kuipers had to perform many orientation tests weightless, blindfolded and with earplugs while alternately wearing and not wearing the vest. He also wore the vest for a few hours during his normal work aboard the spaceship. Kuipers also recorded his physical condition using a questionnaire. How did he feel, when did he get sick and how sick was he? A blood pressure test was also part of this study.
In 2006, a large simulator for complex movements was prepared, named Desdemona. Desdemona is a large 3D swivel chair with which weightlessness can be simulated. The device was designed by an Austrian company. Simply said, Desdemona is a kind of combination of a roller coaster, an electric bull and a centrifuge. The device makes it possible to rotate someone around an arbitrary axis without any limitation, to move up and down and also to spin. Desdemona makes research into flight and space disease, sea and simulator diseases possible. See: Desdemona
The next name changes
Like the other special organisations of TNO, the National Defence Organisation TNO was abolished during the 1980 reorganisation of TNO and became TNO Defence Research.
On December 31, 2005, TNO decided to dissolve TNO’s institute structure (laboratories). TNO-TM was absorbed into the new TNO core area TNO Defence and Security (TNO DV).
On 1 January 2011, the TNO core area structure was abolished; TNO became a single entity. Since then, TNO location Soesterberg has performed part of the research for the TNO Defence, Safety and Security (DSS) unit.