Human Supervisory Control Issues in Unmanned Vehicle Operations Mary (Missy) Cummings Humans and Automation Laboratory http://halab.mit.edu Aeronautics & Astronautics (617) 252-1512 MissyC@mit.edu
Humans & Automation Lab Desert Hawk Dragon eye for laptop
HAL Director Former U.S. Navy officer and pilot Systems engineer with a cognitive focus Research Interests: Human supervisory control, decision support design, human interaction with autonomous systems, design of experiments technology development, social impact of technology
Human Supervisory Control Controls Actuators Computer Task Human Operator (Supervisor) Displays Sensors Humans on the loop vs. in the loop Supporting knowledge-based versus skill-based tasks Network-centric operations & cognitive saturation
Ten Areas of Concern Information overload Attention allocation Appropriate levels of automation Adaptive automation Decision biases Distributed decision-making through team coordination Complexity Supervisory monitoring of operators Trust and reliability Accountability
Information Overload
Attention Allocation Multiple HSC tasks = Divided attention problem Information uncertainties & time latencies Preview times & stopping rules Primary task disruption by secondary task Chat
Automation Description Appropriate Levels of Automation Level Automation Description 1 The computer offers no assistance: human must take all decision and actions. 2 The computer offers a complete set of decision/action alternatives, or 3 narrows the selection down to a few, or 4 suggests one alternative, and 5 executes that suggestion if the human approves, or 6 allows the human a restricted time to veto before automatic execution, or 7 executes automatically, then necessarily informs humans, and 8 informs the human only if asked, or 9 informs the human only if it, the computer, decides to. 10 The computer decides everything and acts autonomously, ignoring the human.
Adaptive Automation Dynamic role allocation A problem of intent Mixed initiatives A problem of intent Cueing mechanisms Psychophysiological Decision theoretic Performance-based
Decision Biases Naturalistic Decision Making Biases Dynamic ill-structured problems with shifting goals (i.e., NCW) Heuristics good & bad Biases Confirmation Recency Automation
Distributed Decision-making & Team Coordination The move from hierarchical, centralized to decentralized control Team mental models & shared situation awareness (SA) Decision support Automated agents as team members Not just an issue for human teams Swarming UAVs
Complexity Traffic Management Advisor
Supervisory Monitoring Nested supervisory control Two basic issues: Recognizing & intervening Interventions Redistribute workload Adding team members (both human & computer) Modify mission objectives
Trust & Reliability
Accountability
The Future of UVs and NCO We can’t do it without automation & intelligent autonomy Bounded Collaboration Human-centered design vs. mission-centered design Unmanned systems do not really exist The systems engineering process must consider humans early Robust systems are needed for both human and automation brittleness considerations