From Safety Net to Augmented Cognition: Using Flexible Autonomy Levels for On-Line Cognitive Assistance and Automation

Human factors research into spatial disorientation (SD) and loss of situation awareness (SA) in the fast jet military pilot has led to consideration of systems for monitoring pilot behaviour and psychophysiology and for detection of performance degradation and incapacitation. These could be the basis of real-time countermeasures, such as a “Safety Net” system, assisting or taking over automatic control until the pilot is able to resume full control of the system. This paper looks at technologies developed under the UK MOD “Cognitive Cockpit” project for providing cognitive assistance through adaptive automation and decision support. The paper considers the requirements for monitoring and countermeasures for cancelling SD. It is argued that all three basic types of SD can be cancelled by effective real-time adaptive countermeasures using flexible levels of autonomy governed by pilot agreed plans. Through analysis and cognitive walk-through of a mission story-board, we show how the safety net concept can be extended by cognitive automation to provide augmentation of SA and decision making. Cognitive augmentation can be seen to mitigate the most dangerous form of insidious disorientation, by keeping the pilot in the control loop before SD sets in.