| As advancements in automation continue to alter the systemic behavior of computer systems in a wide variety of industrial applications, human--machine interactions are increasingly becoming supervisory in nature, with less hands-on human involvement. This maturing of the human role within the human--computer relationship is relegating operations personnel to monitoring machine functionality, intervening only on a by-exception basis (Sheridan, 1970, 1980). As the reduction of human involvement continues to evolve in numerous areas, it can increase the benefits of automation in environments that typically have maintained high levels of human involvement. Automation applied to any supervisory-controlled command and control (C2) system potentially offers significant benefits to the cost and operational support afforded particular applications. Specific to satellite operations, automation may provide better and more cost-effective support to numerous missions supported by a wide variety of C2 systems. Increasing the level of supervisory performance should ultimately improve the overall mission support within these satellite C2 systems. This research seeks to investigate the impact of automation on both operator performance and the subjective stress levels in a group of satellite operations personnel. |
