Human-Automation Interaction for Autonomous Ships: Decision Support for Remote Operators

At NTNU in Norway an 8-year research project has been established to (among other things) research the interaction between humans and unmanned, autonomous ships. The human will become even more important when ship operator will be located remotely in shore control centers ashore. This concept paper will take a closer look on remote decision-making by operators monitoring several ships. How can interface design help them to get quickly into-the-loop when something unexpected suddenly happens? I will in this paper suggest keeping a copy of the AI expert-system controlling the ship, updated and running in parallel in the control center to keep the operator's situation awareness during short communication glitches. Also, to design a "quickly-getting-into-the-loop-display" which automatically will appear in an alarm situation, allowing the operator just-in-time and simple-to-understand information. I will also stress the important of the concept automation transparency.