Reducing the Costs of Automation Failure by Providing Voluntary Automation Checking Tools

We investigated the extent to which a voluntary-use range and bearing line (RBL) tool improves return-to-manual performance when supervising high-degree conflict detection automation in simulated air traffic control.

High-degree automation typically benefits routine performance and reduces workload, but can degrade return-to-manual performance if automation fails. We reasoned that providing a voluntary checking tool (RBL) would support automation failure detection, but also that automation induced complacency could extend to nonoptimal use of such tools.

Participants were assigned to one of three conditions, where conflict detection was either performed: manually, with RBLs available to use (Manual + RBL), automatically with RBLs (Auto + RBL), or automatically without RBLs (Auto). Voluntary-use RBLs allowed participants to reliably check aircraft conflict status. Automation failed once.

RBLs improved automation failure detection - with participants intervening faster and making fewer false alarms when provided RBLs compared to not (Auto + RBL vs Auto). However, a cost of high-degree automation remained, with participants slower to intervene to the automation failure than to an identical manual conflict event (Auto + RBL vs Manual + RBL). There was no difference in RBL engagement time between Auto + RBL and Manual + RBL conditions, suggesting participants noticed the conflict event at the same time.

The cost of automation may have arisen from participants' reconciling which information to trust: the automation (which indicated no conflict and had been perfectly reliable prior to failing) or the RBL (which indicated a conflict).

Providing a mechanism for checking the validity of high-degree automation may facilitate human supervision of automation.