Human Interaction Challenges for Intelligent Environmental Control Software

Human interaction challenges for intelligent environmental control software involve finding the right balance between automation and the flexibility for human involvement. Automation is needed to relieve people from the tedium of maintaining a vigilant watch over low-level sensor data and controlling each life support hardware item individually. Flexibility is needed to deal effectively with anomalies and novel situations. This paper discusses strategies for supporting management by exception and shows how those strategies were implemented in support of the automated control system for product gas transfer during the Phase III Test of the Lunar/Mars Life Support Test Program.