Adaptive autonomy

Human-Automation Interaction

The extremist idea of "eliminate the human from the field" rendered the ironies of automation [ L. Bainbridge, “Ironies of automation”, Automatica, Vol. 19, No. 6, pp. 775-779, 1983. ] , to the extent that the researchers in the related fields shifted the paradigm to the idea of "best-fit autonomy for the computers", in order to provide more humane automation solutions.

One of the first human-machine function-allocation methods was presented by P. M. Fitts in 1951, which was used in automation systems design [ P. M. Fitts, "Some basic questions in designing an air-navigation and air-traffic control system", In N. Moray (Ed.), Ergonomics major writings (Vol. 4, pp. 367–383). London: Taylor & Francis., Reprinted from Human engineering for an effective air navigation and traffic control system, National Research Council, pp. 5–11, 1951. ] .

Adaptive Autonomy

The peripheral situations affect the performance of cybernetic systems; therefore, though one-shot human-centered automation (HCA) designs might provide better results than the systems designed based on the "automate it as possible" philosophy; however, these designs fail to maintain the advantages of the HCA designs, when the peripheral situations changes [ A. Fereidunian, C. Lucas, H. Lesani, M. Lehtonen, M. Nordman "Challenges in implementation of the human-automation interaction models", Proc. of the MED'07 (IEEE), Athens, Greece, June 2007.] , [ A. Fereidunian, M. Lehtonen, H. Lesani, C. Lucas, M. Nordman, "Adaptive autonomy: smart cooperative cybernetic systems for more humane automation solutions", Accepted and to be appeared in the Proc. of the IEEE Int. Conf. of SMC07, Montreal, Canada. ] .
Consequently, the automation solutions should be smart enough to adapt the level of automation (LOA) to the changes in peripheral situations. This concept is known as adaptive automation [ R. Parasuraman, T.B. Sheridan, C.D. Wickens, “A Model for Types and Levels of Human Interaction with Automation”, IEEE Trans. on SMC– Part A, Vol. 30, No.3, May 2000, pp. 286-297. ] or adjustable automation [ J.M. Bradshaw, et al., “Adjustable Autonomy and Human-Agent Teamwork in Practice: An Interim Report on Space Applications”, Chapter 0, in the IEEE Computer Society Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA), 2002.] ; however, the term "adaptive autonomy" (AA) seems more appropriate, to prevent the confusion with the phrases like adaptive control and adaptive automation in systems control terminology.

References

ee also

* Autonomic Computing
* Autonomy-oriented computation
* Autonomous robot
* Human-computer interaction
* Automation
* Cybernetics
* Thomas B. Sheridan