Human-centered Automation

A key focus of this initiative is human-centered automation, that is, designing automation that works well with people. We are developing a principled design framework that takes the human into account, particularly for systems in which the control authority is shared between the human and the automation. Our framework incorporates machine learning with safety-based control, so that the system can learn properties of human interaction while still providing certificates of safety. In shared control scenarios, the framework can produce automation that “nudges” the system into configurations that are more easily controlled by humans.