Evaluating operator harvest technology within a high-fidelity combine simulator

This study evaluates operator acceptance, performance, and feedback for two novel pieces of harvest technology, Advisor and Director. Advisor is an operator-in-the-loop system providing feedback on proper machine control adjustments during normal harvest operations. Director is designed to continuously monitor the overall harvest health and autonomously adjust the combine harvest settings. In this study, operators harvested the same virtual field twice, first using Advisor, and a second time using Director. Operators overwhelmingly perceived both the Advisor and Director systems as optimizing the harvest performance of the combine and recommended both Advisor and Director. The results presented in this work show that both systems improved the perceived harvest performance, although the Advisor was not as highly rated. Participants recommended the automated nature of Director, and both operator feedback and physiological measures indicates that this harvest technology reduced the cognitive load of the operator. This work demonstrates two main points. First, the interactive combine simulator can be used for evaluating novel harvest technology in the lab. Second, that operators can quickly acclimate to automation within the combine and were able to harvest in a more productive manner when using higher levels of automation.