Degraded situation awareness in a robotic workspace: accident report analysis

Abstract

We adopted an approach based on interactions in a robotic workspace, coupled with Endsley’s model of Situation Awareness (SA), to identify factors that potentially degrade operators’ SA: the eight SA demons. We propose here to study the implications of these demons in 45 industrial accidents involving robotic. These demons were associated with possible interactions a human may have in a robotic workspace. Our results showed that five of the eight SA demons appeared in the accident reports examined. The results showed that the identified SA demons were mainly associated with the first level of SA (perception level). We have also been able to describe five patterns of SA demon occurence in these accidents. SA demons are generally involved in human-robot interactions rather than human-environment interactions. Thanks to this analysis, we found that an operator’s SA is mainly impacted by the Errant Mental Model and Out-of-the-Loop SA demons in human-robot and human-environment interactions. Finally, we propose recommendations regarding workspace design.