A Strategy for Determining Optimal Crewing in Future Vertical Lift: Human-Automation Function Allocation

The U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift Optimally Crewed Vehicle program is developing and exercising a strategy for determining crewing that facilitates human-machine teaming by supporting human expertise, leveraging sophisticated automation, and facilitating the joint cognitive team. Traditional approaches to function allocation have resulted in systems that capitalize on the strengths of automation but not the strengths of humans, exhibit brittleness during off- nominal events, and underestimate the amount of work necessary to manage automation. The new strategy developed for this program, based on an extensive literature review, incorporates methods from cognitive task analysis, cognitive work analysis, and human performance modeling/simulation into the following five activities: (1) analyzing function allocation tradespace; (2) analyzing operational demands and work requirements; (3) analyzing interdependencies between human and automation; (4) evaluating alternative options with human performance modeling/simulation; (5) identifying and evaluating alternative function allocation and crewing options. The activities are described with excerpts of associated products.