Adaptive Automation: status of research and future challenge

Automation modifies workplaces, tools, and production activities, leading to new modalities of human-machine interaction. Traditionally, the allocation of functions in automated systems is static over time, i.e., functions are assigned to humans or machines. Adaptive Automation (AA) makes functions allocation dynamic, resulting from system conditions, performance, and human attributes to face emerging or unpredictable contingencies, and to cope with traditional automation challenges and limits. Tracing the evolutionary stages of the topic, the paper provides an extensive literature review. First, the review details the current definition of AA, the starting motivations for AA, and the temporal evolution of the topic considering the pioneers’ theories. Then, the paper presents the design elements involved in AA systems, i.e., the Level Of Automation (LOA), the Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), and the different approaches than can guide the adaptive shift. Finally, the practical applications of AA in manufacturing are reported. In such a way, the research offers the state of the art of the topic, providing the main distinguishing features between static and AA, also outlining the open challenges and the future developments in manufacturing.