What Can the History of Function Allocation Tell Us About the Role of Automation in New Nuclear Power Plants?

New nuclear power plant (NPP) designs, particularly advanced reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs), are expected to be highly automated, changing the job demands and shifting the roles and responsibilities of operators. The expanded capabilities of machines and their more prominent role in plant operation means that operators need new information to support effective human–automation teaming and the maintenance of situation awareness. To understand the impact of new automation and artificial intelligence (AI) technology in NPP control rooms, a literature review on function allocation (FA) methods was conducted. This review focused on four areas: (1) Identifying trends in the prevalence of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methodologies. (2) Developments in levels of automation frameworks. (3) Revisions to the Fitts List. (4) Enabling factors for improved access to data-driven approaches. The review was limited to work occurring after 1983, when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission published research on FA. The results of the review demonstrate that many of the post-1983 methods are qualitative and descriptive. The review also identified several themes for managing human-out-of-the-loop issues. The discussion closes with proposed future work leveraging large language models and simulator-based approaches to enhance the existing FA methods.