Introducing RiskSOAP to communicate the distributed situation awareness of a system about safety issues: an application to a robotic system

Abstract This paper introduces the RiskSOAP (‘RiskSOAP’ is the abbreviation for Risk SituatiOn Awareness Provision.) indicator to measure the capability of a complex socio-technical system to provide its agents with situation awareness (SA) about the presence of its threats and vulnerabilities and enables analysts to assess distributed SA. The RiskSOAP methodology adopts a comparative approach between two design versions of a system differing in the elements and characteristics that can enhance or cause the degradation of the awareness provision capability. The methodology uniquely combines three methods: (1) the STPA hazard analysis, (2) the EWaSAP early warning sign identification approach, and (3) a dissimilarity measure for calculating the distance between binary sets. In this paper, the RiskSOAP methodology was applied to a robotic system and the findings show that the indicator is an objective measure for the system’s capability to provide its agents with SA about its threats and vulnerabilities. Practitioner Summary: This paper suggests a novel methodology for assessing distributed situation awareness (DSA) regarding safety issues. Given that systems consist of specifications and components possible to be mapped, the risk SA provision capability (RiskSOAP) methodology demonstrates the feasibility of measuring to what extent systems’ elements contribute to the emergence of DSA.

[1]  Alexander Artikis,et al.  The design of intelligent socio-technical systems , 2012, Artificial Intelligence Review.

[2]  Gunnar Bolmsjö,et al.  ACROBOTER: a ceiling based crawling, hoisting and swinging service robot platform , 2009 .

[3]  R Flin,et al.  Beyond monitoring: distributed situation awareness in anaesthesia. , 2010, British journal of anaesthesia.

[4]  Neville A Stanton,et al.  Representing distributed cognition in complex systems: how a submarine returns to periscope depth , 2014, Ergonomics.

[5]  Ioannis M. Dokas,et al.  Seven Issues on Distributed Situation Awareness Measurement in Complex Socio-technical Systems , 2014, CSDM.

[6]  Sargur N. Srihari,et al.  Binary Vector Dissimilarity Measures for Handwriting Identification , 2003, IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging.

[7]  Guy H. Walker,et al.  Measuring Situation Awareness in complex systems: Comparison of measures study , 2009 .

[8]  Guy H. Walker,et al.  Event analysis of systemic teamwork (EAST): a novel integration of ergonomics methods to analyse C4i activity , 2006, Ergonomics.

[9]  Davide Manca,et al.  How Distributed Situation Awareness Influences Process Safety , 2014 .

[10]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  A new accident model for engineering safer systems , 2004 .

[11]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  A systems approach to risk management through leading safety indicators , 2015, Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf..

[12]  Neville A Stanton,et al.  Using an integrated methods approach to analyse the emergent properties of military command and control. , 2009, Applied ergonomics.

[13]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety , 2012 .

[14]  Mica R. Endsley,et al.  Situation awareness global assessment technique (SAGAT) , 1988, Proceedings of the IEEE 1988 National Aerospace and Electronics Conference.

[15]  C. Tappert,et al.  A Survey of Binary Similarity and Distance Measures , 2010 .

[16]  R. M. Taylor,et al.  Situational Awareness Rating Technique (Sart): The Development of a Tool for Aircrew Systems Design , 2017 .

[17]  M. R. Houck,et al.  Tools for assessing situational awareness in an operational fighter environment. , 1994, Aviation, space, and environmental medicine.

[18]  Ioannis M. Dokas,et al.  EWaSAP: An early warning sign identification approach based on a systemic hazard analysis , 2013 .

[19]  Ahmad Lotfi,et al.  Abnormal behaviours identification for an elder's life activities using dissimilarity measurements , 2011, PETRA '11.

[20]  Monika Richter,et al.  Cognition In The Wild , 2016 .

[21]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  The concept of risk situation awareness provision: towards a new approach for assessing the DSA about the threats and vulnerabilities of complex socio-technical systems , 2015 .

[22]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  Situation Awareness in Team Performance: Implications for Measurement and Training , 1995, Hum. Factors.

[23]  N A Stanton,et al.  Distributed situation awareness in dynamic systems: theoretical development and application of an ergonomics methodology , 2006, Ergonomics.

[24]  Guy H. Walker,et al.  What really is going on? Review of situation awareness models for individuals and teams , 2008 .

[25]  Sargur N. Srihari,et al.  Properties of Binary Vector Dissimilarity Measures , 2003 .

[26]  Mica R. Endsley,et al.  A Survey of Situation Awareness Requirements in Air-to-Air Combat Fighters , 1993 .

[27]  B. L. William Wong,et al.  The critical decision method , 2006 .

[28]  John Piggott,et al.  Situational awareness and safety , 2001 .

[29]  Guangquan Zhang,et al.  A situation risk awareness approach for process systems safety , 2014 .