This “reflections” piece identifies major themes emerging from the commentaries in the issue. I discuss how some existing issues with the levels of automation (LOAs) approach may be further resolved ...as well as how different perspectives can lead to richer human-automation interaction (HAI) model development. The overarching objective here is to offer some reflections and last thoughts on the overall discussion of LOA issues, but of course, there may be some concerns on which some researchers may need to “agree to disagree.” Related to this, there are a few observations in the commentaries that I respond to with points of fact. Lastly, I suggest a set of future research directions based on several methodological recommendations by commentators as well as my own perspective on what is needed in HAI modeling to move forward.
У статті викладено методичний підхід, який дозволяє розрахувати кількості автоматизованих функцій на кожному автоматизованому робочому місці (АРМ) та за весь орган управління (ОУ), в цілому, з ...неухильним дотриманням визначених вимог до показників: рівня оснащення його технічними та програмними засобами, рівня якості їх функціонування, надійності та взаємозв’язку АРМ.
This study describes the development of requirements for a cognitive assistant (CA) for use onboard a space vehicle/station. For missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), delayed communication will ...limit mission control’s ability to support the space crew in real time. During off-nominal situations, where no procedures have been developed prior to missions, crews must develop responses in real time and may increasingly rely on automation. A systematic approach was used to model the domain knowledge of the collaborative decision-making process of current space operations, extrapolate to missions beyond LEO, and develop the design requirements for a CA. Document analysis and interviews were conducted to create an abstraction hierarchy and a decision-action diagram of the cognitive functions currently performed by space crew, mission control, and onboard automation. These domain models were extrapolated to missions beyond LEO by identifying the breakpoints where current decision-making processes would break down due to increased communication delay between mission control and the space crew. Design requirements were identified for future CA systems that offer real-time decision-making support to mitigate the negative effect of limited support in off-nominal situations. The approach developed for this research can be generalized to identify the design requirements for future support systems in domains beyond space operations.
•We propose an estimation method of the automation rate by taking the advantages of automation as the estimation measures.•We conduct the experiments to examine the validity of the suggested ...method.•The higher the cognitive automation rate is, the greater the decreased rate of the working time will be.•The usefulness of the suggested estimation method is proved by statistical analyses.
Since automation was introduced in various industrial fields, the concept of the automation rate has been used to indicate the inclusion proportion of automation among all work processes or facilities. Expressions of the inclusion proportion of automation are predictable, as is the ability to express the degree of the enhancement of human performance. However, many researchers have found that a high automation rate does not guarantee high performance. Therefore, to reflect the effects of automation on human performance, this paper proposes a new estimation method of the automation rate that considers the effects of automation on human operators in nuclear power plants (NPPs). Automation in NPPs can be divided into two types: system automation and cognitive automation. Some general descriptions and characteristics of each type of automation are provided, and the advantages of automation are investigated. The advantages of each type of automation are used as measures of the estimation method of the automation rate. One advantage was found to be a reduction in the number of tasks, and another was a reduction in human cognitive task loads. The system and the cognitive automation rate were proposed as quantitative measures by taking advantage of the aforementioned benefits. To quantify the required human cognitive task loads and thus suggest the cognitive automation rate, Conant’s information-theory-based model was applied. The validity of the suggested method, especially as regards the cognitive automation rate, was proven by conducting experiments. The result showed that a decreased rate of the operator working time was significantly related to the cognitive automation rate and that the calculation of the cognitive task load was useful as a measure of the cognitive automation rate.
The aim of this paper is to study the methods for assembly representation supporting the level of automation (LoA) decision process. Based on a literature review on the topic of LoA decision-making, ...a need for involving the assembly sequence in the decision was identified. The representation methods used in both assembly modelling and planning and other more generic approaches in the literature were studied and evaluated. The evaluation has been based on a requirements definition describing how the representation should support the decision about automation. Identified gaps in requirement satisfaction from the existing approaches led to the definition of the assembly sequence modelling language (ASML), a new modelling language that combines principles from and improvements on the studied methods and a standard vocabulary of assembly actions. The modelling language was demonstrated in an assembly example and was successfully evaluated with regard to the defined requirements. Thus, this new modelling approach, ASML, is offered as an innovative and intuitive support in the decision-making process for selecting automation levels in Assembly.
To investigate older drivers' perceptions of vehicle functions that compensate for aging effects, including different levels of automation and various types of warning functions, we conducted a ...survey among older drivers in South Korea. Participants (N = 118 men and 45 women;
age range 55-75 years) reported on how important they perceived each function to be. Results showed that, for older drivers, the importance of warnings about the surrounding environment was significantly greater than that of warnings about the driver's condition and the car's status.
Further, fully automatic functions were significantly less preferred to warning and assistive functions. These results indicate that the characteristics and needs of older adults should be taken into account in relation to the design of vehicle functions.
Today, dynamic changes in market requirements call for high adaptability of the level of automation (LoA) in assembly systems. Traditionally, the viable LoA of flow-line assembly systems is ...calculated as a function of output and monetary costs thus neglecting the true problem complexity. This paper presents an approach for the support of automation decisions, using a range of non-monetary multivariable criteria, which were determined by means of a survey and expert interviews. With three partial models to a) describe assembly systems, b) estimate cost and benefits of proposed equipment scenarios and c) select automation configurations, this approach improves decision quality.
Various levels of automation (LOA) designating the degree of human operator and computer control were explored within the context of a dynamic control task as a means of improving overall ...human/machine performance. Automated systems have traditionally been explored as binary function allocations; either the human or the machine is assigned to a given task. More recently, intermediary levels of automation have been discussed as a means of maintaining operator involvement in system performance, leading to improvements in situation awareness and reductions in out-of-the-loop performance problems. A LOA taxonomy applicable to a wide range of psychomotor and cognitive tasks is presented here. The taxonomy comprises various schemes of generic control system function allocations. The functions allocated to a human operator and/or computer included monitoring displays, generating processing options, selecting an 'optimal' option and implementing that option. The impact of the LOA taxonomy was assessed within a dynamic and complex cognitive control task by measuring its effect on human/system performance, situation awareness and workload. Thirty subjects performed simulation trials involving various levels of automation. Several automation failures occurred and out-of-the-loop performance decrements were assessed. Results suggest that, in terms of performance, human operators benefit most from automation of the implementation portion of the task, but only under normal operating conditions; in contrast, removal of the operator from task implementation is detrimental to performance recovery if the automated system fails. Joint human/system option generation significantly degraded performance in comparison to human or automated option generation alone. Lower operator workload and higher situation awareness were observed under automation of the decision making portion of the task (i.e. selection of options), although human/system performance was only slightly improved. The implications of these findings for the design of automated systems are discussed.
Drivers' inadequate mental workload has been reported as one of the negative effects of driving assistant systems and in-vehicle automation. The increasing trend of automation in agricultural ...vehicles raises some concerns about drivers' mental workload in such vehicles. Thus, a human factors perspective is needed to identify the consequences of such automated systems. In this simulator study, the effects of vehicle steering task automation (VSTA) and implement control and monitoring task automation (ICMTA) were investigated using a tractor-air seeder system as a case study. Two performance parameters (reaction time and accuracy of actions) were measured to assess drivers' perceived mental workload. Experiments were conducted using the tractor driving simulator (TDS) located in the Agricultural Ergonomics Laboratory at the University of Manitoba. Study participants were university students with tractor driving experience. According to the results, reaction time and number of errors made by drivers both decreased as the automation level increased. Correlations were found among performance parameters and subjective mental workload reported by the drivers.
With the increase in technological capabilities, system designers can imagine new possibilities for Humans to interact with smart systems and delegate some of their tasks to these systems. The ...interactions and support provided by the systems would be so useful that some authors already propose considering them as symbiotic. The objective of this paper is to examine the ethical risks relevant to designing symbiotic systems in the context of Industry 4.0. These risks are presented and discussed. The paper addresses these risks using the human-machine cooperation approach, which allows a detailed analysis of all the kinds of interactions between humans and machines. Three use cases derived from Industry 4.0 objectives were studied within the framework of the ANR HUMANISM project (Human-Machine cooperation for flexible production Systems). These use cases are detailed to underline the interest of this approach regarding the identification, suppression or mitigation of ethical risks.
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