Team situation awareness in nuclear power plant process control: A literature review, task analysis and future research

Conference · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2006

OSTI ID:22030101

Ma, R ^[1]; Kaber, D B ^[2]; Jones, J M; Starkey, R L ^[1]

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1. New Plants Engineering, AREVA NP Inc., Charlotte, NC 28262 (United States)
2. Edward P. Fitts Dept. of Industrial and System Engineering, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695 (United States)

Operator achievement and maintenance of situation awareness (SA) in nuclear power plant (NPP) process control has emerged as an important concept in defining effective relationships between humans and automation in this complex system. A literature review on factors influencing SA revealed several variables to be important to team SA, including the overall task and team goals, individual tasks, team member roles, and the team members themselves. Team SA can also be adversely affected by a range of factors, including stress, mental over- or under-loading, system design (including human-machine interface design), complexity, human error in perception, and automation. Our research focused on the analysis of 'shared' SA and team SA among an assumed three-person, main-control-room team. Shared SA requirements represent the knowledge that is held in common by NPP operators, and team SA represents the collective, unique knowledge of all operators. The paper describes an approach to goal-directed task analysis (GDTA) applied to NPP main control room operations. In general, the GDTA method reveals critical operator decision and information requirements. It identifies operator SA requirements relevant to performing complex systems control. The GDTA can reveal requirements at various levels of cognitive processing, including perception, comprehension and projection, in NPP process control. Based on the literature review and GDTA approach, a number of potential research issues are proposed with an aim toward understanding and facilitating team SA in NPP process control. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22030101
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
AUTOMATION
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONTROL ROOMS
DESIGN
HUMAN FACTORS
INFORMATION NEEDS
MAN-MACHINE SYSTEMS
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
PROCESS CONTROL
REACTOR CONTROL SYSTEMS
REACTOR OPERATORS
REVIEWS