Human-computer interaction research has produced consistent results bearing on a well-established body of knowledge in cognitive science. In contrast, the new research domains of computer- supported cooperative work (CSCW) or human?machine cooperation are harder to develop because the problems to be solved are more complex and the theoretical frameworks more heterogeneous. However, dynamic situations with high temporal constraints create occasions where small teams (including humans and machines) can cooperate on an almost cognitive basis, reducing social or emotional effects. This paper reviews the state of the art on cognitive cooperation to extend an individual cognitive architecture and deal with these situations, combining private and cooperative activities that are highly task-oriented. Cooperation is taken as the management of interference between individual activities to facilitate the team members' sub-tasks and the team's common task when there is one. This review of the literature is a step towards a theoretical approach that could be relevant to evaluate cooperation and to design assistance in diverse domains such as air traffic control or aircraft piloting.

Towards a cognitive approach to human-machine cooperation in dynamic situations

Since the 1960s, the rapid growth of information systems has led to the wide development of research on human-computer interaction (HCI) that aims at the designing of human-computer interfaces presenting ergonomic properties, such as friendliness, usability, transparency, etc. Various work situations have been covered--clerical work, computer programming, design, etc. However, they were mainly static in the sense that the user fully controls the computer. More recently, public and private organizations have engaged themselves in the enterprise of managing more and more complex and coupled systems by the means of automation. Modern machines not only process information, but also act on dynamic situations as humans have done in the past, managing stock exchange, industrial plants, aircraft, etc. These dynamic situations are not fully controlled and are affected by uncertain factors. Hence, degrees of freedom must be maintained to allow the humans and the machine to adapt to unforeseen contingencies. A human-machine cooperation (HMC) approach is necessary to address the new stakes introduced by this trend. This paper describes the possible improvement of HCI by HMC, the need for a new conception of function allocation between humans and machines, and the main problems encountered within the new forms of human-machine relationship. It proposes a conceptual framework to study HMC from a cognitive point of view in highly dynamic situations like aircraft piloting or air-traffic control, and concludes on the design of 'cooperative' machines.

From human-machine interaction to human-machine cooperation

This paper attempts to provide a relational understanding of the generative power of information technologies: an understanding that sees information technologies as embedded in workpractices. This theoretical undertaking, inspired by actor-network theory and work within CSCW, has a practical and political aim. The problems it discusses are directly relevant for the aims and hopes of CSCW: the design of systems that fit workpractices better than traditionally designed systems, and that enhance worker‘s competencies and responsibilities. The paper depicts information technologies as reading and writing artifacts. Taking parts of the medical record as an example, the paper argues that those tools -- in relation with the reading and writing activities of nurses, doctors, laboratory systems -- can be seen to perform two roles in work practices. They accumulate inscriptions and coordinate activities of other entities in the work practice, and in that way afford the handling of more complex worktasks. This focus on the generative power of these artifacts leads to a reconsideration of the notions of ’supporting‘ work and ’transparent‘ technologies, and to a series of specific entry-points for a politics of IT.

Accumulating and Coordinating: Occasions for Information Technologies in Medical Work

Resilience Engineering: current status of the research and future challenges

Robust H∞ output-feedback control for path following of autonomous ground vehicles

Common work space for human–machine cooperation in air traffic control

Automation-driver cooperative driving in presence of undetected obstacles

Unmanned ground vehicles tend to be more and more autonomous, but both complete teleoperation and full autonomy are not efficient enough to deal with all possible situations. To be efficient, the human–robot system must be able to anticipate, react and recover from errors of different kinds, i.e., to be resilient. From this observation, this paper proposes a survey on the resilience of a human–machine system and the means to control the resilience. The resilience of a system can be defined as the ability to maintain or recover a stable state when subject to disturbance. Adjustable autonomy and human–machine cooperation are considered as means of resilience for the system. This paper then proposes three indicators to assess different meanings of resilience of the system: foresight and avoidance of events, reaction to events and recovery from occurrence of events. The third of these metrics takes into consideration the concept of affordances that allows a common representation for the opportunities of action between the automated system and its environment.

Principles of adjustable autonomy: a framework for resilient human–machine cooperation

The increasing air traffic and the ensuing increasing burden on air traffic controllers suggest to attempt to provide enhanced assistance to air traffic controllers. As it is difficult to reduce the number of primary tasks, a solution is to give active assistance to controllers by means of computer tools that allow for optimal control in order to maintain the level of safety and at the same time regulate the air traffic controllers' workload. The objective of our research is to propose and validate a new organisation of air traffic control. It aims at integrating both levels of the organisation of air traffic control: a tactical level managed by a radar controller and a strategic level managed by a organic controller. Our study at first addresses the tactical level, aiming at ‘horizontal cooperation’ consisting in dynamic allocation of control tasks between a human air traffic controller and an assistance tool. The results of this first approach has oriented the study toward the implementation of a scheduling module for the tactical level. This paper reports the functionalities of air-traffic control and the results of few preceding experiments. A description of the new multi-level organisation is given, to conduce to the presentation of experimental platform, experimental protocol and the first results of experiments.

Serge Debernard

Papers

Common work space for human–machine cooperation in air traffic control

Automation-driver cooperative driving in presence of undetected obstacles

Principles of adjustable autonomy: a framework for resilient human–machine cooperation

Cooperation between humans and machines: first results of an experiment with a multi-level cooperative organisation in air traffic control

Designing Human-Machine Interface for Autonomous Vehicles