The Adaptive Automation Design

Abstract

During last years Adaptive Automation (AA) has received considerable attention in the academic community, in labs, in technology companies, because of the large use of automation in several domains (e.g. aviation; manufacturing; medicine; road, rail, and maritime transportation). AA is a potential solution to the problems associated with human- automation interaction, regardless of the complexity of the application domain. The adaptive automation concept was firstly proposed about 30 years ago (Rouse, 1976), but technology has provided the empirical evidence of its effectiveness in more recent times. Several studies have shown that adaptive systems can regulate operator workload and enhance performance while preserving the benefits of automation (Hilburn et al., 1997; Kaber & Endsley, 2004; Moray et al., 2000; Prinzel et al., 2003). Still, inappropriate design of adaptive systems may even bring to a worse performance than full manual systems (Parasuraman et al., 1999). Therefore, methods and skills for designing adaptive automation systems should be fully mastered, before taking the implementation step. Before analyzing the concept and impact of adaptation features, the meaning and definition of automation should be defined, in order to stress how human characteristics and limitations influence the use (or misuse) of automation Andy Clark (2003) successfully tried to summarize the technological relationship between human and automated system: “humans have always been adept at dovetailing our minds and skills to the shape of our current tools and aids. But when those tools and aids start dovetailing back – when our technologies actively, automatically, and continually tailor themselves to us just as we do to them – then the line between tool and human becomes flimsy indeed”. Several researchers tried to define what adaptive automation is, using different and complementary concepts. In order to achieve a complete, if it is possible, definition of adaptive automation, it is needed to analyse the definition and the implication of automation itself. AA aims at optimizing the cooperation and at efficiently allocating labor between an automated system and its human users (Kay, 2006) and it can be considered as an alternative method used to implement automation in a system, whose purpose is to bridge the gaps of traditional automation. AA refers to systems in which either the user or the system can modify the level of automation by shifting the control of specific functions, whenever specific conditions are met. In an adaptive automated system, changes in the state of automation, operational modalities and the number of active systems can be initiated by either the human operator or the system (Hancock & Chignell, 1987; Rouse, 1976; Scerbo, 1996). In this way adaptive automation enables the level or modes of automation to be tied more closely to operator’s needs at any given moment (Scerbo, 1996).