FW-HTF-P: Human-Agent Teaming for the Future of Work in Aircraft Manufacturing

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The vision of this Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier: Core Research planning project is to bring the benefits of a digital workspace to labor-intensive tasks in the aerospace industry. Human-agent teaming presents substantial challenges that are not present in all-human or all-digital workspaces. The research will build upon results in natural-language processing, human-robot collaboration, artificial intelligence (AI), control engineering, data analytics, statistics, and community education to establish the feasibility of an innovative human-agent teaming framework for aircraft manufacturing. The goal is a comprehensive and integrated environment in which human workers and managers, robots and AIs, will cooperatively communicate, set goals, plan tasks, make decisions, and solve problems. The project will address challenges in quality control, risk mitigation, and workforce management via support for worker teaming, data analytics, visualization, verification, and communication. In this setting, process automation, AI, and robotics will free human workers to concentrate on high-value and creative tasks. Benefits to workers and employers include lightened work intensity, improved quality of manufacturing work, and minimization of safety risks. The research results will improve the productivity and competitiveness of the aircraft manufacturing industry. By deemphasizing specific physical requirements, the project could create new job opportunities and increase employment equity, accessibility, and inclusion. The project addresses the technical and managerial barriers obstructing the integration of human workers into the future digital workspace, specifically in the context of aerospace manufacturing. The research will cultivate the theory of human-agent teaming in manufacturing by designing a holistic framework of natural-language communication, visual informatics, physical interaction and augmentation, and mutual understanding. The research will also advance knowledge by addressing the challenges in work management and analytics derived from future manufacturing work. Specifically, this project 1) examines the feasibility of a human-agent teaming framework that establishes mental and physical bindings for digital workers and human workers to collaborate efficiently and safely in the context of aerospace manufacturing; 2) bridges the knowledge gap in workforce management, quality control, and business modeling for future manufacturing industry, founded on a hybrid workforce through the implementation of integrated workforce management; and 3) conducts surveys, collects data, and holds workshops to gather information about the critical worker and managerial skills and training required by the new work paradigm.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.