Simulating Task Sharing with Delegation for Authority and Autonomy for Air Traffic Control
1
1,2
Douglas W. Lee , Ellen J. Bass
1College of Computing and Informatics, 2College of Nursing and Health Professions
Introduction
Agents in complex work environments frequently
have to make decisions to determine how and when
tasks are executed. An agent may execute some tasks
immediately, while delaying or delegating to other agents
the execution of other tasks. These decisions are
influenced by and impact the allocation of work amongst
agents in a given work environment, with respect to
agent autonomy, authority, and responsibility. Also critical
to these task sharing decisions are the resulting impacts
on the taskwork and teamwork demands of agents.
Models and evaluation methods are needed to
understand these decisions and their impacts to inform
the design of multi-agent work.
Background
Taskwork is the work agents must perform to achieve
their goals
Teamwork is the work required for agents to coordinate
allocated taskwork
Autonomy: is the capability of an agent to perform
taskwork
Authority is the assignment of an agent to perform
taskwork
Responsibility is the assignment of accountability for the
outcome of taskwork
Task Sharing with Delegation
Methods
Results
Scenario: Interval Management
Operational concept: Lead aircraft follows an optimized profile
descent (OPD); following aircraft maintain time-based spacing
AC2
T-240
AC1
T-240
AC3 now
60 s
AC2 now
60 s
AC1 now
Model of agent behavior: Task sharing with delegation
Lateral Route
Agent Models
Fight crew agents: AC1, AC2, AC3
Air traffic controller (ATC) Human Performance Agent
• Multi-tasking capacity: infinite; fixed number of tasks
• Delegation status (Task sharing strategy):
Delay only; delegate when at close to capacity
• Time to delegate: fixed
• Time to monitor: never monitor or fixed time
Decreased multi-tasking capacity increases the number
of delayed actions by the ATC agent.
Delegating taskwork to the flight crews reduces
delayed tasks and ATC’s overall taskwork
• Trade off teamwork (communicating and monitoring)
with taskwork
The total required taskwork time (sum of the durations
of taskwork actions) is divided between ATC and flight
crews when ATC is delegating.
This task sharing imposes costs in additional required
teamwork time for all agents, especially ATC.
Case Studies
In all cases, the ATC agent has authority over all taskwork
 Baseline : ATC has infinite capacity (no delay or delegation)
 Delay (no delegation):
 Delay 4: Multi-tasking capacity = 4 tasks
 Delay 7: Multi-tasking capacity = 7 tasks
 Delegation with Communication (no monitoring):
Delegate when number of current tasks is 1 less than
capacity
 Delegate/Comm4: Multi-tasking capacity = 4 tasks
 Delegate/Comm7: Multi-tasking capacity = 7 tasks
 Delegation with Communication/Monitoring: Delegate
when number of current tasks is 1 less than capacity;
Monitor after delegation
 Delegate/Comm/Monitor4: Multi-tasking capacity = 4
tasks
 Delegate/Comm/Monitor7: Multi-tasking capacity = 7
tasks
WMC Implementation
Attributes of an agent model for task sharing with delegation
AC3
T-240
Conclusion
References
This work focuses on the design and evaluation of
aviation concepts of operation with respect to the
allocation of work to human and automated agents.
M. IJtsma, J. Hoekstra, R. P. Bhattacharyya, and A. Pritchett, “Computational assessment
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Management Research and Development Seminar, 2015.
We introduce a human performance agent model of task
sharing with delegation describing an agent which either
executes taskwork immediately, or delays execution or
delegates to others. We have demonstrated the utility of
computational tools for describing the impacts of this
agent’s characteristics on the distribution of taskwork and
teamwork in a novel work environment.
Future work in simulating task sharing with delegation will
involve:
• Enhanced decision-making and prioritization
mechanisms for the agent model in processing
taskwork
• Inclusion of negotiation of delegated work
• Formulation of autonomy, authority and responsibilitybased metrics for evaluation of agent taskwork and
teamwork
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Cybernetics (SMC). IEEE, 2014, pp. 1744–1751.
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Acknowledgements
This work is sponsored by the NASA Aviation Safety Program with
Dr. Guillaume Brat serving as Technical Monitor under grant
number NNX13AB71A S04 (Amy Pritchett, Principal Investigator).
The authors also thank the other WMC developers for their ongoing
mutual support.