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Since the start of industrialization, machine capabilities have increased in such a way that human control of processes has evolved from simple (with mechanization) to cognitive (with computerization), and even emotional (with semi/full automation). The processes have also evolved from simple to complicated, and now complex systems, in the emerging context of Industry 4.0. The objective of the special issue “Human and Industry 4.0” is to benefit from studies and results from current manufacturing projects to highlight clues and good practices to design intelligent manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0, then paying attention to human involvements in order to unsure what it looks like in practice and how to realize these systems, especially when it comes to maintenance and operations. This paper aims to summarize the scientific papers that contributed to the Special Issue “Human and Industry 4.0”. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

While full automation of road vehicles remains a future goal, shared-control and semi-autonomous driving – involving transitions of control between the human and the machine – are more feasible objectives in the near term. These alternative driving modes will benefit from new research towards novel steering control devices, more suitable where the machine intelligence controls only partially the vehicle. In this paper it is proposed that when the human shares the control of a vehicle with an autonomous or semi-autonomous system, a force control or non-displacement steering wheel (i.e., a steering wheel which does not rotate but detects the applied torque by the human driver) can be advantageous under certain schemes: tight rein or loose rein modes according to the Hmetaphor. We support this proposition with the first experiments, to the best of our knowledge, in which human participants drove in a simulated road scene with a force control steering wheel. The experiments exhibited that humans can adapt promptly to force control steering and are able to control the vehicle smoothly. Different transfer functions are tested, which translate the applied torque at the force control steering wheel to the steering angle at the wheels of the vehicle; it is shown that fractional order transfer functions increment steering stability and control accuracy when using a force control device. Transition of control experiments are also performed with both, a conventional and a force control steering wheel. This prototypical steering system can be realized via steer-by-wire controls, which are already incorporated in commercially available vehicles.

The eight papers in this special issue focus on agent and system transparency in human-machine systems. The concept of transparency is investigated in a variety of contexts of human agent interaction—from a single robot to multiple heterogeneous agents and swarms. Two studies examine the effects of individual and cultural differences and, based on the compelling results, provide design recommendations related to transparent interfaces. One of the papers provides a thorough review on theoretical aspects of agent transparency and empirical findings on operator performance, situation awareness, trust and workload, among other outcomes. These measures are also among some of the most common metrics reported in studies in this special issue.

Human factors in transportation : proceedings of 13th AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Transportation, New York, USA, July 24-28, 2022 / Editors: Katie Plant, Gesa Praetorius 13. AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Transportation, New York, NY, USA, 24 Jul 2022 - 28 Jul 2022 13. International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, AHFE 2022, New York, USA, 24 Jul 2022 - 28 Jul 2022; New York, United States of America : AHFE International, AHFE international 60, Advances in transportation 501-507 (2022). doi:10.54941/ahfe1002483, Published by AHFE International, New York, United States of America

Cognition, technology & work : CTW 21(4), 555-568 (2019). doi:10.1007/s10111-019-00576-1 special issue: "Special Issue: Shared and Cooperative Control", Published by Springer, London

Robotic assistants will play an important role in future space exploration activities. In order to provide an optimal human-robot cooperation and interaction, the interface between user and machine requires an intuitive design. In this paper an interface evaluation methodology is presented as the synthesis of existing approaches in space projects and general recommendations by Human Factors Engineering. The MARVIN project of the European Space Agency (ESA) serves as a test case for this methodology. As a subsequent step to the evaluation results, the relevance of design improvements is derived from specific guidelines for robotics and from experiences in Earth exploration systems with humans involved.

In 2019, autonomy and autonomous cars are still heavily debated and investigated, but might be at the peak point of public attention, which might ramp down in the next years without diminishing the need to develop safe autonomous capabilities. Thinking beyond autonomy, the research and development paradigm of human autonomy teaming, here cooperativity and cooperatively interacting vehicles makes good use of autonomous capabilities and functions and puts these into the service of a cooperative system of systems. In this system, automobiles are cooperating with each other, with other traffic participants and with drivers and passengers on board. This article focuses on one aspect of system cooperation, on the cooperation between the vehicle and inhabitants in normal operations, at the limits of the automation, and at system failure. Modes, transitions, and especially the take-over ability are identified as crucial elements of a system architecture. A model to determine the take-over ability online and an interaction design to couple this model with the automation and the driver is presented and enriched with first results. An outlook sketches the next steps towards a confidence horizon as an interaction element to bridge the dangerous valleys of automation and cooperation with autonomous functions.

21st IFAC World Congress on Automatic Control - Meeting Societal Challenges, online, 11 Jul 2020 - 17 Jul 2020; IFAC-PapersOnLine 53(2), 15360-15367 (2020). doi:10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.2350 special issue: "21th IFAC World Congress / Edited by Rolf Findeisen, Sandra Hirche, Klaus Janschek, Martin Mönnigmann", Published by Elsevier, Frankfurt ; München [u.a.]

Science and engineering ethics 26, 667-689 (2019). doi:10.1007/s11948-019-00114-2, Published by Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

International audience; Over the last centuries we have experienced scientific, technological and societal progress that enabled the creation of intelligent assisted and automated machines with increasing abilities, and require a conscious distribution of roles and control between humans and machines. Machines can be more than either fully automated or manually controlled, but can work together with the human on different levels of assistance and automation in a hopefully beneficial cooperation. One way of cooperation is that the automation and the human have a shared control over a situation, e.g. a vehicle in an environment. The objective of this paper is to provide a common meta model of shared and cooperative assistance and automation. The meta models based on insight from the H(orse)-methaphor (Flemisch et al, 2003; Goodrich et al., 2006) and Human-Machine Cooperation principles (Hoc and Lemoine, 1998; Pacaux-Lemoine and Debernard, 2002; Pacaux-Lemoine, 2014), are presented and combined in order to propose a framework and criteria to design safe, efficient, ecological and attractive systems. Cooperation is presented from different points of view such as levels of activity (operational, tactical and strategic levels) (Lemoine et al, 1996) as well as the type of function shared between Human and machine (information gathering, information analysis, decision selection, action implementation) (Parasuraman et al., 2000). Examples will be provided in the aviation domain (e.g. Goodrich et. al 2012) and the automotive domain with the automation of driving (Hoeger et al, 2008; Flemisch et al., 2016; Tricot et al., 2004; Pacaux-Lemoine et al, 2004; Pacaux-Lemoine et al., 2015).

In the light of the ongoing developments towards more and more sophisticated driver assistant systems and the surge of higher automation levels in driving, new concepts are required. With the increase of automated vehicles, the cooperation between the automation system and the human driver becomes crucial. For this purpose, the application of shared control and its extension cooperative guidance and control to the field of automated driving is very promising. Shared and cooperative guidance and control of automated vehicles enable a dynamic distribution of control and responsibility. Empirical studies show on practical implementations of cooperative guidance and control, H-Mode and StrAsRob show that cooperative guidance and control is not only theoretically appealing, but is also well accepted by potential human drivers.

For over 40 years science in a variety of domains has conducted an impressive amount of research in the field of assistance and automation concepts, which apply human factors and needs in the design stage of cooperative and cognitive technical systems. Cooperative automation is an approach that tries to keep the user in the control loop by means of a continuous interaction during task execution. Cooperative automation aims to support the harmonization of the actor's activities (user and automation) in a human-machine-system. To enable this, both the internal (processing and computation) and external (communications and interfaces) design of the automation has to be compatible with human competence. This contribution addresses the key features of cooperative automation. These features have been used for creating a design space, which can be used as method repository in order to develop assistance systems based on the cognitive capabilities of the human. The key elements are represented as dimensions of the design space. Corresponding theories and methods are discussed. The design process for a cognitive and cooperative assistance system based on the dimensions of the design space are described. The developed Cognitive and Cooperative Assistance System (COGAS), has been implemented in the domain of air target identification on German naval ships. An evaluation of COGAS has been conducted with naval operators in order to verify its operability and to optimize and extend the COGAS functionality. The results show that COGAS improves the operator's performance in terms of increasing the amount of correct decisions and accelerating the identification process without increasing the operator's stress level. In addition it was found that COGAS helps to enhance the situational awareness due to the workload optimization.

Activities in the field of automated driving have produced a variety of development tools and methodologies over the past decades. The requirements the systems have to fulfil and thus also the development guidelines are often documented in different kinds of catalogues (use-case catalogues, situation catalogues, scenario catalogues etc.). These catalogues cannot be directly applied for the development of partially and highly automated vehicle guidance concepts like conduct-by-wire (CbW) or H-mode. One reason is that up to now, no consistent terminology known to the authors yet exists for vehicle automation within the community. Moreover, as the aim of the two project groups CbW and H-mode is to make a comprehensive feasibility assessment of cooperative vehicle guidance, all interacting components of the overall system as well as all potential driving conditions a cooperative vehicle guidance system might have to cope with have to be analysed. This article focuses on two aspects. The first is a metaphor-based terminology discussion leading to a proposal for a fundamental ontology. The second aspect is an outlook on the different catalogues that use the new terminology and that have been developed. The methodology introduced here is a fundamental contribution towards simplifying communication and the exchange of findings.

International audience; As an introduction to the session of shared and cooperative control, this article will briefly look into the history, start with definitions and sketch a common framework of shared and cooperative control that sees the two phrases not as different concepts, but as different perspectives or foci on a common design space of shared intentionality, control and cooperation between humans and machines.One working hypothesis which the session will explore is that shared control can be understood as cooperation at the control level, while human machine cooperation can include shared control, but can also extend towards cooperation at higher levels, e.g. of guidance and navigation, of maneuvers and goals.We propose to view the relationship between shared control and human-machine cooperation as being similar to the relationship between the sharp, pointy tip and the (blunt) shaft of a spear. Shared control is where cooperation comes sharply into effect at the control level, but to be truly effective it should be supported by cooperation on all levels of interaction beyond the control level, e.g. on the guidance and navigation level.

Shared Control, where the machine and the human share tasks and control the situation together, and its extension cooperative automation are promising approaches to overcome automation-induced problems, such as lack of situation awareness and degradation of skill. However, the design of Shared Controllers and/or cooperative human-machine systems should be done in a very careful manner. One of the major issues is conflicts between the human and the machine: how to detect these conflicts, and how to resolve them, if necessary? A complicating factor is that when the human is right, conflicts are undesirable (resulting in nuisance, degraded performance, etc), but when the machine is right, conflicts are desirable (warning the operator, or proper assistance or overruling). Research has pointed out several types and causes of conflicts, but offers no coherent framework for design and evaluation guidelines. In this paper, we propose such a theoretical framework in order to structure and relate different types of conflicts. The framework is inspired by a hierarchical task analysis, and identifies five possible sources of conflicts: intent, information gathering, information processing, decision-making and action implementation. Examples of conflicts in several application domains such as automobile, telerobotics, and surgery are discussed to illustrate the applicability of this framework.

As vehicle and computer technology are more and more merging, new forms of assistance and automation in vehicles open up the potential to increasing safety and improving comfort. In HAVEit, an EU-FP7 Integrating Project, car and truck manufacturers, suppliers and research organizations explore highly automated driving applications, where the automation can take over substantial parts of the driving task, but where the driver is still in the loop. The interaction between the human and such an automation becomes a crucial part for a successful, dynamic balance between human and machine. Starting with design explorations, generic interaction and display schemes for highly automated driving were derived, implemented, tested in assessments and experiments, and finally applied to the demonstrator vehicles of HAVEit.

In this paper, the theater-system technique, a method for agile designing and testing of system behavior and interaction concepts is described. The technique is based on the Wizard-of-Oz approach, originally used for emulating automated speech recognition, and is extended towards an interactive, user-centered design technique. The paper describes the design process using the theater-system technique, the technical build-up of the theater-system, and an application of the technique: the design of a haptic-multimodal interaction strategy for highly automated vehicles. The use of the theater-system in the design process is manifold: It is used for the concrete design work of the design team, for the assessment of user expectations as well as for early usability assessments, extending the principles of user-centered design towards a dynamically balanced design.

There are several human factor concerns with highly autonomous or semiautonomous driving, such as transition of control, loss of skill, and dealing with automated system errors. Four CityMobil experiments studied the eLane concept for dual-mode cars, and the results of one are described. The open eLane concept brings together road infrastructure and technical developments in vehicle automation to allow automated driving. The goal for the driving simulator experiment was to design and test the difference between a vocal and an acoustic user interface for a dual-mode vehicle driven both manually and automatically. In the experiment ( n = 24), driver behavior was observed with a focus on the transition of control and the occurrence of system errors. Performance of transition of control was adequate for both interfaces at the beginning and end of an eLane. In the case of system failure, 15% of drivers failed to take control of the car in time for both interfaces. However, of those who did regain control, drivers with the vocal interface were faster. Moreover, a subjective questionnaire showed that the vocal interface was perceived as more positive than the acoustic interface. The study suggests that the vocal interface was preferred by participants and can be recommended for the human–machine interface of dual-mode vehicles, especially for providing warnings about system malfunctioning.

Driven by increased safety, efficiency, and airspace capacity, automation is playing an increasing role in aircraft operations. As aircraft become increasingly able to autonomously respond to a range of situations with performance surpassing human operators, we are compelled to look for new methods that help us understand their use and guide their design using new forms of automation and interaction. We propose a novel design metaphor to aid the conceptualization, design, and operation of highly-automated aircraft. Design metaphors transfer meaning from common experiences to less familiar applications or functions. A notable example is the "Desktop metaphor" for manipulating files on a computer. This paper describes a metaphor for highly automated vehicles known as the H-metaphor and a specific embodiment of the metaphor known as the H-mode as applied to aircraft. The fundamentals of the H-metaphor are reviewed followed by an overview of an exploratory usability study investigating human-automation interaction issues for a simple H-mode implementation. The envisioned application of the H-mode concept to aircraft is then described as are two planned evaluations.

Progress enables the creation of more automated and intelligent machines with increasing abilities that open up new roles between humans and machines. Only with a proper design for the resulting cooperative human-machine systems, these advances will make our lives easier, safer and enjoyable rather than harder and miserable. Starting from examples of natural cooperative systems, the paper investigates four cornerstone concepts for the design of such systems: ability, authority, control and responsibility, as well as their relationship to each other and to concepts like levels of automation and autonomy. Consistency in the relations between these concepts is identified as an important quality for the system design. A simple graphical tool is introduced that can help to visualize the cornerstone concepts and their relations in a single diagram. Examples from the automotive domain, where a cooperative guidance and control of highly automated vehicles is under investigation , demonstrate the application of the concepts and the tool. Transitions in authority and control, e. g. initiated by changes in the ability of human or machine, are identified as key challenges. A sufficient consistency of the mental models of human and machines, not only in the system use but also in the design and evaluation, can be a key enabler for a successful dynamic balance between humans and machines.