Situation awareness information requirement for marine engine room monitoring at the future shore control center

Authors

  • Changhun Han Centre for Seafaring and Maritime Operations, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston 7250, Tasmania, Australia
  • Apsara Abeysiriwardhane Centre for Seafaring and Maritime Operations, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston 7250, Tasmania, Australia
  • Rabiul Islam Centre for Seafaring and Maritime Operations, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston 7250, Tasmania, Australia
  • Shuhong Chai Centre for Seafaring and Maritime Operations, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston 7250, Tasmania, Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33175/mtr.2025.271105

Keywords:

Autonomous ship; Situation awareness information requirement; Marine engine room monitoring; Shore control center; Remote operation; Goal-directed task analysis

Abstract

Information integration for explicit comprehension can be highly challenging in a large-scale system with interconnected equipment under the influence of the environment. This presents a great challenge in acquiring and maintaining situation awareness during the transition from traditional to remote and, eventually, to autonomous operation. However, the maritime industry appears to approach situation awareness in a highly restricted manner that focuses on visual and navigational awareness only, resulting in no support system for engine room monitoring. This research conducted a goal-directed task analysis with thirty-one subject matter experts, with an average sea experience of 9.78 years, to investigate situation awareness in the engine room. As a result, the situation awareness information requirements for nine machineries and twelve systems are developed. The findings reveal that numerous perception elements, and their complex combinations, for higher-level awareness comprise situation awareness, and situation awareness deterioration is highly likely, due to the replication or reproduction of ship sense and expanded system coverage to compensate for the lack of marine engineers on ships. This research proposes that presenting higher-level situation awareness information in consideration of schema instantiation could be a promising alternative to developing and optimising the situation awareness support system for engine room monitoring at the future shore control center.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cite this article: Han, C., Abeysiriwardhane, A., Islam, R., Chai, S. (2025). Situation awareness information requirement for marine engine room monitoring at the future shore control center. Maritime Technology and Research, 7(1), 270067. https://doi.org/10.33175/mtr.2025.271105
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Highlights

  • The replication of conventional monitoring systems for remote operation results in a loss of situation awareness information as the conventional systems are designed to collaborate with human operators onsite
  • The relocation of humans from ships to shore must incorporate the transfer of information that human operators generate
  • Situation awareness in the engine room comprises numerous information elements and requires a high level of information integration skills for comprehension and projection
  • Situation awareness support systems must facilitate information integration while maintaining a balance between system explainability and simplicity
  • Cue strength differences in comprising comprehension and projection might effectively address system complexity and situation awareness

References

AAWA. (2016). Remote and autonomous ships - The next steps. Retrieved from https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/customers/marine/ship-intel/aawa-whitepaper-210616.pdf

Abd Hamid, H., & Waterson, P. (2010). Using goal directed task analysis to identify situation awareness requirements of advanced paramedics (pp. 672-680). In Duffy, V. G. (Ed.). Advances in human factors and ergonomics in healthcare. Boca Raton, USA: CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/EBK1439834978

Allal, A. A., Mansouri, K., Youssfi, M., & Qbadou, M. (2018). Toward energy saving and environmental protection by implementation of autonomous ship (pp. 177-180). In Proceedings of the 19th IEEE Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference. http://doi.org/10.1109/MELCON.2018.8379089

Bolstad, C. A., Riley, J. M., Jones, D. G., & Endsley, M. R. (2002). Using goal directed task analysis with Army brigade officer teams. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 46(3), 472-476. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120204600354

Burns, C. M., Skraaning, G. Jr., Jamieson, G. A., Lau, N., Kwok, J., Welch, R., & Andresen, G. (2008). Evaluation of ecological interface design for nuclear process control: Situation awareness effects. Human Factors, 50(4), 663-679. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008X312305

Dekker, S. W. (2015). The danger of losing situation awareness. Cognition, Technology & Work, 17, 159-161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-015-0320-8

Endsley, M. R. (1995a). A taxonomy of situation awareness errors (pp. 287-292). In Fuller, R. Johnston, N., & McDonald, N. (Eds.). Human factors in aviation operations. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing.

Endsley, M. R. (1995b). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. Human Factors, 37(1), 32-64. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872095779049543

Endsley, M. R. (2016). Designing for situation awareness: An approach to user-centered design. 2nd Ed. Bota Raton, USA: CRC press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b11371

Endsley, M. R. (2017). Direct measurement of situation awareness: Validity and use of SAGAT (pp. 129-156). In Salas, E., & Dietz, A. S. (Eds.). Situational awareness. Milton Park, UK: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315087924

Endsley, M. R., Farley, T. C., Jones, W. M., Midkiff, A. H., & Hansman, R. J. (1998). Situation awareness information requirements for commercial airline pilots. Retrieved from https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/35929

Endsley, M. R., & Garland, D. J. (2000). Situation awareness analysis and measurement. 1st ed. Boca Raton, USA: CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/b12461

Endsley, M. R., & Jones, W. (2013). Situation awareness (pp. 88-108). In Lee, J. D., & Kirlik, A. (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of cognitive engineering. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199757183.001.0001

Endsley, M. R., & Rodgers, M. D. (1994). Situation awareness information requirements analysis for en route air traffic control. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 38(1), 71-75. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193129403800113

Grech, M. R., Horberry, T., & Smith, A. (2002). Human error in maritime operations: Analyses of accident reports using the Leximancer tool. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 46(19), 1718-1721. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120204601906

Haffaci, K., Massicotte, M. C., & Doyon-Poulin, P. (2021). Goal-directed task analysis for situation awareness requirements during ship docking in compulsory pilotage area (pp. 647-654). In Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Ergonomics Association. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74608-7_79

Helton, W. S., & Russell, P. N. (2011). Working memory load and the vigilance decrement. Experimental Brain Research, 212(3), 429-437. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-011-2749-1

IMO. (2023). Autonomous shipping. Retrieved from https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/HotTopics/Pages/Autonomous-shipping.aspx

Jones, D. G., & Endsley, M. R. (1996). Sources of situation awareness errors in aviation. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 67(6), 507-512.

KASS. (2023). What is an autonomous ship?. Retrieved from http://kassproject.org/en/info/info.php

Kott, A., Wang, C., & Erbacher, R. F. (2015). Cyber defense and situational awareness. 1st Ed. Berlin, Germany: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11391-3

Ma, R., Kaber, D. B., Jones, J. M., & Starkey, R. L. (2006). Team situation awareness in nuclear power plant process control: a literature review, task analysis and future research (pp. 459-462). In Proceedings of the 5th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation Controls, and Human Machine Interface Technology.

MacKinnon, S. N., Man, Y., & Michael, B. (2015). D8.8 final report: Shore control centre. Retrieved from http://www.unmanned-ship.org/munin/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MUNIN-D8-8-Final-Report-Shore-Control-Centre-CTH-final.pdf

Malkovsky, E., Merrifield, C., Goldberg, Y., & Danckert, J. (2012). Exploring the relationship between boredom and sustained attention. Experimental Brain Research, 221(1), 59-67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3147-z

Mutzenich, C., Durant, S., Helman, S., & Dalton, P. (2021). Updating our understanding of situation awareness in relation to remote operators of autonomous vehicles. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00271-8

NYKLINE. (2020). NYK to participate in crewless maritime autonomous surface ship trial project. Retrieved from www.nyk.com/english/news/2020/20200615_01.html

Ottesen, A. E. (2014). Situation awareness in remote operation of autonomous ships. Retrieved from https://maritimesafetyinnovationlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Norwegian-University-Situation-Awareness-in-Remote-Operation-of-Autonomous-Ships-Shore-Control-Center-Guidelines-Ottesen.pdf

Patrick, J., James, N., & Ahmed, A. (2007). Awareness of control room teams. Le Travail Humain, 70(1), 67-94. https://doi.org/10.3917/th.701.0067

Porathe, T., Fjortoft, K., & Bratbergsengen, I. L. (2020). Human factors, autonomous ships and constrained coastal navigation. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, 929(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/929/1/012007

Porathe, T., Prison, J., & Man, Y. (2014). Situation awareness in remote control centres for unmanned ships (pp. 1-9). In Proceedings of the Human Factors in Ship Design & Operation. https://doi.org/10.3940/rina.hf.2014.12

Pribyl, S. T., & Weigel, A. M. (2018). Autonomous vessels: How an emerging disruptive technology is poised to impact the maritime industry much sooner than anticipated. Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Law, 1(1), 17-25.

Randall, J. G., Beier, M. E., & Villado, A. J. (2019). Multiple routes to mind wandering: Predicting mind wandering with resource theories. Consciousness and Cognition, 67, 26-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2018.11.006

Reinerman-Jones, L. E., Hughes, N., D'Agostino, A., & Matthews, G. (2019). Human performance metrics for the nuclear domain: A tool for evaluating measures of workload, situation awareness and teamwork. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 69, 217-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2018.12.001

Rezaeifam, S., Ergen, E., & Günaydın, H. M. (2023). Fire emergency response systems information requirements' data model for situational awareness of responders: A goal-directed task analysis. Journal of Building Engineering, 63, 105531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2022.105531

Riley, J. M., & Endsley, M. R. (2004). The hunt for situation awareness: Human-robot interaction in search and rescue. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 48(3), 693-697. https://doi.org/10.1177/154193120404800389

Roth, G., Schulte, A., Schmitt, F., & Brand, Y. (2020). Transparency for a workload-adaptive cognitive agent in a manned-unmanned teaming application. IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, 50(3), 225-233. https://doi.org/10.1109/THMS.2019.2914667

Sanchez-Gonzalez, P. L., Díaz-Gutiérrez, D., Leo, T. J., & Núñez-Rivas, L. R. (2019). Toward digitalization of maritime transport? Sensors, 19(4), 926. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19040926

Selkowitz, A. R., Lakhmani, S. G., Larios, C. N., & Chen, J. Y. (2016). Agent transparency and the autonomous squad member. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 60(1), 1319-1323. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931213601305

Sharma, A., Nazir, S., & Ernstsen, J. (2019). Situation awareness information requirements for maritime navigation: A goal directed task analysis. Safety Science, 120, 745-752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.08.016

Shenoi, R. A., Bowker, J. A., Dzielendziak, A. S., Lidtke, A. K., Zhu, G., Cheng, F., Argyos, D., Fang, I., Gonzalez, J., Johnson, S., & Ross, K. (2015). Global marine technology trends 2030. Retrieved from https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/388628

Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2006). The restless mind. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 946-958. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.946

Sneddon, A., Mearns, K., & Flin, R. (2006). Situation awareness and safety in offshore drill crews. Cognition, Technology & Work, 8, 255-267. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-006-0040-1

Solberg, E., Nystad, E., & McDonald, R. (2023). Situation awareness in outage work-A study of events occurring in US nuclear power plants between 2016 and 2020. Safety Science, 158(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2022.105965

Stratmann, T. C., & Boll, S. (2016). Demon hunt-the role of endsley’s demons of situation awareness in maritime accidents (pp. 203-212). In Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-Centred Software Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44902-9_13

Sullivan, B. P., Desai, S., Sole, J., Rossi, M., Ramundo, L., & Terzi, S. (2020). Maritime 4.0-opportunities in digitalization and advanced manufacturing for vessel development. Procedia Manufacturing, 42, 246-253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.02.078

Thomson, D. R., Smilek, D., & Besner, D. (2014). On the asymmetric effects of mind-wandering on levels of processing at encoding and retrieval. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(3), 728-733. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-013-0526-9

van de Merwe, K., Mallam, S., & Nazir, S. (2022). Agent transparency, situation awareness, mental workload, and operator performance: A systematic literature review. Human Factors, 66(1), 180-208. https://doi.org/10.1177/00187208221077804

von Eschenbach, W. J. (2021). Transparency and the black box problem: Why we do not trust AI. Philosophy & Technology, 34(4), 1607-1622. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-021-00477-0

Wang, R., Wen, J., & Li, P. (2022). A SEM-based research on influencing factors of team situation awareness in nuclear power plants. Frontiers in Energy Research, 10, 982932. https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2022.982932

Warm, J. S., Dember, W. N., & Hancock, P. A. (2018). Vigilance and workload in automated systems (pp. 183-200). In Parasuraman, R., & Mouloua, M. (Eds.). Automation and human performance: Theory and applications. Boca Raton, USA: CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315137957

Warm, J. S., Parasuraman, R., & Matthews, G. (2008). Vigilance requires hard mental work and is stressful. Human Factors, 50(3), 433-441. https://doi.org/10.1518/001872008X312152

Wickens, C. D. (2002). Multiple resources and performance prediction. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science, 3(2), 159-177. https://doi.org/10.1080/14639220210123806

Yanco, H. A., & Drury, J. (2004). Where am I? Acquiring situation awareness using a remote robot platform (pp. 2835-2840). In Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSMC.2004.1400762

Yoshida, M., Shimizu, E., Sugomori, M., & Umeda, A. (2020). Regulatory requirements on the competence of remote operator in maritime autonomous surface ship: Situation awareness, ship sense and goal-based gap analysis. Applied Sciences, 10(23), 8751. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10238751

Zuo, G., Chen, J., & Dai, L. (2019). Experimental research on measurement of team situation awareness in nuclear power plants (pp. 199-213). In Proceedings of the International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20037-4_18

Downloads

Published

2024-07-04

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2025): January - March

Section

Article

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Maritime Technology and Research

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Copyright: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0