ERP Human Enhancement Progress Report : Use case and computational model for adaptive maritime automation

Automation is often applied in order to increase the cost-effectiveness, reliability and safety of maritime ship and offshore operations. Automation of operator tasks, has not, however, eliminated human error so much as created opportunities for new kinds of error. The ambition of the Adaptive Maritime Automation (AMA) project in the Early Research Program (ERP) Human Enhancement is to develop smarter task automation, by shifting tasks between humans and machines adaptively, depending on environmental factors, operator state, and system performance. The goal of this automation approach is to better support bridge teams in their work, improving the safety and reliability of maritime ship and offshore operations. The use case that was selected is maritime Dynamic Positioning (DP). The rationale behind our choice is that DP provides a vital and critical contribution in a great variety of offshore operations. The increasing size and operational complexity of DP platforms and the continuous increase in number of DP incidents warrants our ambition to further improve the safety and reliability of DP operations through the development of smarter task automation. This report describes the use case that was selected, requirements of smarter task automation, and more precisely, how it could be made adaptive, and how measuring and modeling system, environment and operator state could drive the actions of the adaptive automation platform. In 2016 the project will focus on the development of a prototype.