Modelling and Using Common Ground in Human-agent Collaboration during Spacecraft Operations

Space operations involve the control of complex technical equipment in highly dynamic and unknown environments. This is a challenging task for human operators. To facilitate this task, mission-critical software systems need to be able to truly engage in joint activities with their human operators; i.e. these systems need to be designed for interdependence with the operators. A key aspect of undertaking joint activities in human teams is the representation and maintenance of common ground—the information that participants in a joint activity share and assume to be shared. It has been proposed that maintenance of common ground is also important in the operation of space software systems, but computational representations of the concept have been rather ad-hoc. In recent work, we introduced the first formal account of common ground, which we based on a detailed analysis of philosophical and psychological literature. In this paper, we analyze how computational representations of common ground can support the interdependence of space software systems with human operators; and we explore how this aspect of joint activities might be implemented computationally. Our analysis is relevant to the design of future mission control systems and to the design of human-agent-robot teams in space operations.