The impact of intermediate levels of automation on situation awareness and performance in dynamic control systems

Automation is being used increasingly in the nuclear power field in an effort to ensure high levels of system safety. Traditional automation approaches bring with them an actual danger to safety however-the out-of-the-loop performance problem. Operators working with automated systems may be ineffective in overseeing highly automated systems intervening effectively as highly automated systems will place them in the role of passive system monitor, a role which has been linked to low levels of situation awareness. An alternate design approach is presented that focuses on utilizing intermediate levels of automation (LOA) that integrate the human operators and the automated system in substantially different ways. Intermediate LOAs can significantly enhance operator situation awareness and performance, decreasing out-of-the-loop performance problems