From Here to Autonomy

Abstract

As autonomous and semiautonomous systems are developed for automotive, aviation, cyber, robotics and other applications, the ability of human operators to effectively oversee and interact with them when needed poses a significant challenge. An automation conundrum exists in which as more autonomy is added to a system, and its reliability and robustness increase, the lower the situation awareness of human operators and the less likely that they will be able to take over manual control when needed. The human-autonomy systems oversight model integrates several decades of relevant autonomy research on operator situation awareness, out-of-the-loop performance problems, monitoring, and trust, which are all major challenges underlying the automation conundrum. Key design interventions for improving human performance in interacting with autonomous systems are integrated in the model, including human-automation interface features and central automation interaction paradigms comprising levels of automation, adaptive automation, and granularity of control approaches. Recommendations for the design of human-autonomy interfaces are presented and directions for future research discussed.

Perceived stress in human–machine interaction in modern manufacturing environments—Results of a qualitative interview study

“…This might become even more important as the human operator in the modern manufacturing industry is more and more involved in monitoring tasks that require a good representation of all ongoing processes in order to be able to take over manual control when needed. This so called "situation awareness" decreases as systems become more complex (Endsley, 2015(Endsley, , 2017. Situation awareness increases when the system design allows for an adequate representation of the system status (Endsley, 1995b;Tharanathan, Bullemer, Laberge, Reising, & Mclain, 2012), which reduces operating errors (Liao & Chang, 2011) and increases the subjective quality of the human-machine interaction (Skjerve & Skraaning, 2004).…”

A Systems Engineering Assessment of Emergency Disconnect System from the User Perspective

“…Behere (2016) highlights the importance of transparency of the system to ensure user awareness. This is also supported by Endsley (2017), who have stated that adding more autonomy on the system may decrease the situational awareness of the user. The challenge is to develop a flexible and transparent architecture that allows for different degrees of user interaction and secures the situational awareness of the user.…”

Cognitive Challenges of Changeability: Multi‐Level Flexibility for Operating a Modular Chemical Plant

“…Third, it should be noted that the cognitive challenges of modular plants like presented in this study stand in sharp contrast to a major theme in current discussions of operator roles in other highly autonomous systems: the challenge of passive cognition [63]: Operators are removed from the task, mostly assuming the role of a passive monitor, which impairs system understanding and situation awareness. For instance, when operators have to take back control in autonomous driving, they encounter difficulties for extended periods of time [64,65], which also manifests in impaired information acquisition behaviors such as lane checking [66].…”