How Does Maritime Situation Awareness Depend on Navigation Automation and Mental Workload? A Sea Simulator Experiment

: A good situation awareness (SA) of the navigator is essential for the safety of the ship, especially in coastal areas. In this study, the Unity 3D engine was used to simulate the navigation of a coastal tradin g vessel along predefined routes in the Baltic Sea. The SA of the helmsman, who was either Chinese or European, was assessed several times wit h the SAGAT test (Endsley, 1995b, 20-21) and compared between low and high workload conditions and between manual and autopilot navigation. High workload and automated navigation both reduced SA sign ificantly and in an additive manner. No difference was found between Chinese and European participants. In contrast to previous accident analyses of SA, we found that SA l evel 3 (projection of future states) was most strongly affected by both factors, whil e SA levels 1 (perception of relevant information) and 2 (comprehension of the current situation) suffered to a lesser extent. Further research is needed to establish spec ific relationships between types of automation on ships, types of workload, and SA pr oblems in order to design countermeasures.