Design of autonomous systems

Keeping up to date with the latest research in human factors and safety in complex systems is important at Risk Pilot. So we’re happy that one of our consultants, Douglas Owen, is doing his doctorate on how to design autonomous systems to be capable resilient performance. What does that mean? It means figuring out how autonomous systems should behave to minimise harm and optimise outcomes when faced with situations that haven’t been foreseen and may have never happened before. Past resilience research has shown that people provide lion’s share of adaptive capacity within complex socio-technical systems. His work should reveal a clearer picture of how this happens in conventional systems, and the potential of autonomous systems to augment and even extend this capability. Douglas is doing this research in the Marine and Arctic Technology: Research Group on Maritime Risk and Safety at Aalto University in Finland alongside his Supervisor Asst. Prof. Osiris A. Valdez Banda.  While the research is in the maritime domain, the ideas are applicable to any industry or endeavour. Anywhere that complex organisations and systems operate in unpredictable environments, and the outcomes matter.