Futuristic laboratory with diverse team analyzing holographic data streams.

Unlock Team Potential: How ADAPTER Revolutionizes Human State Assessment

Beau Callahan in Tech & Innovation September 2025 • 5 min read.

"Discover how ADAPTER, a cutting-edge toolkit, empowers researchers to efficiently analyze and augment team performance by seamlessly integrating sensor data and modeling human states."

Effective teamwork hinges on individual focus coupled with a strong awareness of fellow team members. Researchers striving to enhance team and individual performance rely on analyzing behavioral, neurophysiological, and physiological signals. These signals provide insights into the intricate dynamics that drive performance, but gathering and synchronizing data from multiple sensors poses significant challenges.

Building accurate and useful models to assess human states adds another layer of complexity, often proving time-consuming and difficult to navigate. Overcoming these hurdles is essential for researchers looking to develop effective strategies for team augmentation and performance optimization.

To address these challenges, Charles River Analytics developed ADAPTER (Adaptable Toolkit for the Assessment and Augmentation of Performance by Teams in Real Time). This innovative toolkit provides a comprehensive framework for integrating sensors, fusing data, and assessing performance. ADAPTER offers researchers the flexibility to incorporate current and emerging sensors, create and implement models that support performance research, and comprehensively characterize team member performance during real-time experimental protocols.

ADAPTER: A Deep Dive into Its Capabilities

Futuristic laboratory with diverse team analyzing holographic data streams.

ADAPTER stands out by offering a suite of tools designed to streamline the research process, making it more efficient and insightful. Its capabilities span data integration, model building, and real-time monitoring, providing a holistic view of team performance. The system's user-friendly interface and flexible architecture make it accessible to researchers with varying levels of technical expertise.

The iterative development and refinement process, involving researchers from both university and professional-level laboratories, has resulted in a highly usable system. This collaborative approach ensures that ADAPTER meets the practical needs of researchers studying human states and team dynamics. ADAPTER's core functionalities include:

Experimental Setup: A guided process that simplifies the setup of experiments, including the ability to reload previously saved protocols.
Variable Selection: Intuitive selection of variables to be displayed on live data graphs during experiments.
Weighted Average Models: Tools for creating and viewing weighted average models of participant workload.
Causal Influence Models: Features for designing and analyzing causal influence models of participant workload.
Experiment Control: Comprehensive controls for starting and ending experiments, including a timeline to track progress.
Device Monitoring: Real-time display of connection status for all devices used by participants.
Live Data Visualization: Dynamic graphs displaying live data during experiments, with options to view or hide selected variables.
Model Output: Real-time display of output data from models during experiments.
Data Saving: Secure saving of model output for future analysis and examination.

The experimental setup within ADAPTER is streamlined through the use of XML files, which facilitate easy entry of team details, participant information, and sensor device configurations. This approach eliminates the need for hard-coding sensor configurations, allowing ADAPTER to seamlessly integrate data from various sensors, even as laboratory setups evolve and new technologies emerge. The flexibility ensures that researchers can adapt the toolkit to their specific needs without extensive technical modifications.

Transforming Research with ADAPTER

ADAPTER's individual tools provide valuable support to students and researchers with diverse backgrounds and experience levels, accommodating any type of sensor data. By acquiring and aligning data in a standardized format, ADAPTER offers a flexible system that can be integrated with existing laboratory sensors. The iterative refinement of ADAPTER, driven by feedback from university and government partners, has resulted in a user-friendly interface suitable for research labs across various fields. This interface enables the study of relationships between sensor or task variables and human states, fostering advancements in team and individual performance.

About this Article -

This article was crafted using a human-AI hybrid and collaborative approach. AI assisted our team with initial drafting, research insights, identifying key questions, and image generation. Our human editors guided topic selection, defined the angle, structured the content, ensured factual accuracy and relevance, refined the tone, and conducted thorough editing to deliver helpful, high-quality information.See our About page for more information.

This article is based on research published under:

DOI-LINK: 10.1177/1541931213601986, Alternate LINK

Title: A Toolkit To Assist Researchers To More Efficiently Conduct Experiments Assessing Human State

Subject: General Medicine

Journal: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Authors: Bethany K. Bracken, Noa Palmon, David Koelle, Mike Farry

Published: 2017-09-01

Everything You Need To Know

What is ADAPTER and how does it improve team performance research?

ADAPTER (Adaptable Toolkit for the Assessment and Augmentation of Performance by Teams in Real Time) is a toolkit designed by Charles River Analytics. It helps researchers assess human states in real-time by integrating sensor data and using flexible modeling techniques. This approach enables a comprehensive understanding of team dynamics and supports the development of strategies for performance optimization. ADAPTER streamlines research by simplifying data integration, model building, and real-time monitoring, ultimately leading to more efficient and insightful studies on team performance.

What challenges does ADAPTER address in the study of team dynamics?

ADAPTER addresses the challenges of gathering and synchronizing data from multiple sensors, which is essential for analyzing behavioral, neurophysiological, and physiological signals that indicate team performance. It also tackles the complexity of building accurate and useful models to assess human states. By providing a framework for integrating sensors, fusing data, and assessing performance, ADAPTER simplifies these complex tasks, making research in team dynamics more manageable and effective.

How does ADAPTER's experimental setup work, and what benefits does it offer researchers?

ADAPTER's experimental setup is streamlined through the use of XML files. These files allow researchers to easily enter team details, participant information, and sensor device configurations. This approach eliminates the need for hard-coding sensor configurations, allowing ADAPTER to integrate data from various sensors. This flexibility ensures researchers can adapt the toolkit to their specific needs without extensive technical modifications. The system also includes features such as guided experiment setup, variable selection for live data graphs, and comprehensive experiment controls, enhancing the research process.

What are the core functionalities of ADAPTER, and how do they support research on human states?

ADAPTER includes key functionalities such as Experimental Setup, Variable Selection, Weighted Average Models, Causal Influence Models, Experiment Control, Device Monitoring, Live Data Visualization, Model Output, and Data Saving. These tools enable researchers to create and implement models that support performance research. Features like real-time data display, model output monitoring, and secure data saving provide a holistic view of team member performance during experiments, facilitating detailed analysis and examination of human states within team environments.

How does ADAPTER adapt to different research needs and integrate with existing laboratory setups?

ADAPTER is designed to be flexible and adaptable. It can integrate with existing laboratory sensors by acquiring and aligning data in a standardized format. The toolkit supports various sensor data types. The iterative development and refinement of ADAPTER, driven by feedback from university and government partners, has resulted in a user-friendly interface suitable for research labs across various fields. This design allows researchers with different backgrounds and experience levels to use ADAPTER for studying the relationship between sensor or task variables and human states, driving advancements in team and individual performance.