Imagine the potential in dissolving the boundary between humans and automation. Creating this collaborative human-automation technology will allow automation to transcend its current role of being a tool and elevate it to the role of a teammate. Human Automation Teaming Solutions Inc., a technology start-up that received a $1 million contract from NASA, has been tapped to create this technology.

LOS ANGELES, December 5, 2016 - NASA has awarded Human Automation Teaming Solutions Inc. (HATS) a $1 million contract for a yearlong effort to develop R-HATS technology that will reduce the number of human operators needed to manage complex systems. By allowing the seamless sharing of tasks and responsibilities between automation and human, a single ground operator using R-HATS will simultaneously assist and monitor multiple manned or unmanned aircrafts.

As part of the NASA contract, HATS will integrate innovative systems and interactive interface design concepts to create collaborative human-automation teaming where automation transcends its current role of being a tool and is elevated to the role of a teammate.

"R-HATS is a highly advanced and intelligent automated agent that is comparable to the sharing of tasks and responsibilities between human teammates in current-day complex systems such as the relationship between pilots and dispatchers," states Dr. Nhut Ho, president and founder of HATS. "R-HATS will be utilized, as a prototype, into NASA simulators using an integrated product development team (IPT) with NASA as a customer and close collaborator."

The R-HATS human automation project is the latest in a series of major works using HATS autonomous technologies that fosters interaction and helps dissolve the boundary between humans and automation.

Other HATS projects include:
• J-HATT, a ground control station (GCS) and testbed for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), was developed to enhance NASAs research capabilities, particularly on how to enable UAS integration into the national airspace system (NAS).
• M-HATT, another innovative UAS GCS testbed partially funded with a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from NASA, is being designed to enable rapid research and development cycles with easy integration of new capabilities. Its single human operator will allow for simultaneous oversight and management of over 100 UAS simultaneously.

About Human Automation Teaming Solutions
Human Automation Teaming Solutions (HATS) Inc. is a Los Angeles, California start-up founded in June 2014 by Dr. Nhut Ho and Vicky Ho. HATS was founded to tackle the human automation partnership challenge, and specializes in the design and development of automation and software supporting human teaming with robotic systems, such as unmanned autonomous ground and aerial vehicles.