Wetware, Hardware, or Software Incapacitation: Observational Methods to Determine When Autonomy Should Assume Control

Abstract

Control-theoretic modeling of human operator's dynamic behavior in manual control tasks has a long, rich history. There has been significant work on techniques used to identify the pilot model of a given structure. This research attempts to go beyond pilot identification based on experimental data to develop a predictor of pilot behavior. Two methods for predicting pilot stick input during changing aircraft dynamics and deducing changes in pilot behavior are presented This approach may also have the capability to detect a change in a subject due to workload, engagement, etc., or the effects of changes in vehicle dynamics on the pilot. With this ability to detect changes in piloting behavior, the possibility now exists to mediate human adverse behaviors, hardware failures, and software anomalies with autonomy that may ameliorate these undesirable effects. However, appropriate timing of when autonomy should assume control is dependent on criticality of actions to safety, sensitivity of methods to accurately detect these adverse changes, and effects of changes in levels of automation of the system as a whole. Nomenclature

Adaptive State Predictor Based Human Operator Modeling on Longitudinal and Lateral Control

“…Previous results have found that the GDE and LSEEF methods are fairly accurate in predicting longitudinal stick input from commanded pitch. 24,25 These results will discuss the accuracy of each of the three methods -GDE, LSEEF, and LSEBGF -to predict both pilot longitudinal and lateral stick input from the flight director's commanded pitch and bank attitudes. The results will also discuss how Γ, λ, and k 0 vary depending on controller adaptation time during each run's three segments: before failure, during failure, and after failure.…”

Aircraft Ground Braking Assistant Control Based on Pilot Control Model

“…For vehicle ground braking, especially, reference targets such as inclination of runway sidelines, near and far angle are important for pilot lateral control modelling, which are discussed in [12]- [14]. As for obtaining the pilot model parameters, different estimation methods are introduced in previous researches [15]- [18].…”