This document discusses automation and autonomy. It defines automation as tasks performed by machines that could be done by humans. While system designers promise benefits like decreased workload, operators often find issues like failures and accidents. Automation impacts operators through changes to mental models, workload, skills and more. It is not equal to human team members as it has limitations. The level of automation depends on factors like system size and mission. Taxonomies help classify automation functions and levels. Challenges for autonomous systems include sensor integration, communication during failures, and issues of trust and workload within systems.

1. Automation
and
Autonomy
Lisa Jo Elliott, Ph.D.
University of South Florida

2. Automation
“any sensing, detection,
information-processing, decision-
making, or control action that could
be performed by humans but is
actually performed by machine.”
- Moray et al. (2000, p. 44)

3. System designers promise automation
delivers…
• decreased workload
• increased precision
• better system performance.
System operators find automation delivers…
• system failures
• automation-induced accidents
• imperfect team member

4. UAS vs. Manned Flight Operation
• Automation is one of the few areas.
– Manned studies translate to unmanned systems
• Depending on the size and use of the UAS
– Smaller vehicles less automation
• Role of automation is well defined (waypoint
navigation).
– Larger systems complex automation along with
several team members and several roles.

5. Automation has Behavior
• Interacts with the operator’s behavior
– mental model of the system
– trust of the system.
• Automation changes an operator’s
– training,
– task assignments,
– workload,
– situation awareness,
– trust
– operator’s skill set

6. Automation is not
an equal team member
• Changes the dynamics between the operator
& the system.
– automation is limited in its ability
– automation is deaf,
– cannot freely communicate
– only the abilities that the system designer has
deemed necessary.

7. Re-Distributing Workload from Operators
to the Automation
• Often, aids appear at precisely the time when
workload is the greatest.
• Operators do not have the time to set up the
automation in addition to flying the plane.
• In order for automation to relieve workload
it must be incorporated gradually and before
operator workload is at its maximum.

8. Skill Decrement
???!

9. Trust
• “automation etiquette guidelines”
– Based on Gricean Maxims
• Can overcome low automation reliability:
– performance in the low-reliability/good-etiquette
condition was almost as good as …
– that in the high reliability/poor etiquette
condition.
Miller et al., 2004; Sheridan and Parasuraman ,2006, (p. 103).

10. Automation is not All or None
• The amount of automation and the roles it plays are dictated by
– system size
– number of operators
– mission.
• Static automation is hard-wired.
– The system designer chooses whom (the system or the operator) and
how (manual or automatic) a task will be performed.
• Adaptive automation is called up by an operator event.
– explicit (a request for aid)
– implicit (tied to operator workload)
– situational event (takeoff speed).
– ability to turn itself on or off.
McCarley and Wickens, 2005

11. Taxonomies
• The human-centered taxonomies are useful
– isolating operator issues
– system performance issues
– defining what the automation can and should be
doing in terms of human cognitive performance
Wickens, 2008a

12. Two types of Taxonomies
• Functional Centered Taxonomies
• Technocentric Taxonomies

13. Functional Taxonomy:
Four Classes of Automation Functions
• 1) information acquisition;
• (2) information analysis;
• (3) decision and action selection;
• (4) action implementation
• Parasuraman and Colleagues (2000)
Parasuraman et al., 2000, p. 288

14. Technocentric Taxonomy: NASA FLOAAT
• Function-Specific Level of Autonomy and Automation
Tool (FLOAAT) to facilitate its system requirements
development.
• lowest level of automation states that
– all data monitoring
– calculation
– decisions
– tasks are executed by the ground station.
• highest level of automation moves
– all data monitoring, calculation, decisions, and task
execution to the onboard system without any assistance
from the human..
Proud and Hart, 2005

15. Ongoing Challenges
• Sensory System Integration
– Inability of autonomous systems to create
consistent object representations from a variety of
sensors.
• System communication with an operator
– in case of system failure
• Intra System issues of
– Trust, situation awareness, & workload.

16. References
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