Human Interaction with Control Software Supporting Adjustable Autonomy

Abstract

Reductions in operations personnel and the availability of more capable automation technology have resulted in increased automation of space control systems. One of the challenges of deploying autonomous systems is ensuring that people can interact effectively with them. An important strategy for such interaction is providing for different levels of control autonomy, or adjustable autonomy. At TRACLabs/Metrica, we are developing software for human interaction with control software supporting adjustable levels of autonomy. Our domain of application is the control of space systems and robots for NASA's manned space exploration program at the Johnson Space Center. Traditionally test and flight operations have been manually intensive. Flight controllers monitor astronauts directly controlling the operation of space vehicle systems, robotics, and life support systems. The use of automated software changes the role of humans in command and control. Low level data monitoring and control is replaced by the supervision of autonomous control and by joint human-computer task performance. These new human tasks require new types of information and new ways of presenting this information, as well as new ways of intervening in autonomous operations. Additionally, these changes in operations have increased the likelihood of humans supervising multiple automated systems that are physically dispersed and functionally diverse. It is important to provide an integrated view of system operations and to support access to such information from remote locations. Intelligent information processing is needed to derive and integrate heterogeneous control data in support of these new human tasks. And an architecture is needed that supports remote human interaction with distributed, autonomous control systems.