Challenges, Research, and Opportunities for Human–Machine Teaming in Aviation

The advent of increasingly autonomous systems (IAS) are likely to herald the proliferation of non-traditional role allocations in human–machine teams (HMTs) in aviation contexts. Ensuring the safety of these novel human machine teaming paradigms and their attendant IAS will require an appropriate body of knowledge created through relevant, reproducible research. In this report, we examine the meaning of teaming; current regulation, standards, and guidance; the knowledge required to build resilient HMTs; and recent research performed under NASA auspices to derive recommendations for an overarching research agenda that will be needed to safely enable the deployment of HMTs with IAS.We identify the need for research into the holistic performance of HMTs; the effect of novel allocations of roles between humans and machines; the ability of humans to provide resilience to unforeseen dangers when acting as a part of these teams; means of assuring the correctness and innocuity of AI/ML components enabling these systems; and the characteristics required for clear, timely, and accurate communication between the humans and machines.