A non-traditional approach to understanding total system performance of avionics systems

On the next military combat mission, space shuttle flight, or mission to Mars think of what it would be like if R2-D2, Luke Skywalker's backseater in his X-wing fighter, was along for the mission. In the movie, Star Wars, R2-D2 had both intelligence and personality. If we were to design a real R2-D2 (e.g., an automated aviation assistant, a synthetic crewmember, a computerized co-pilot, or a 'Pilot's Associate') for the next generation of avionics, what personality characteristics should we give it? We know that personality effects behavior and as a result affects how we see problems and subsequently, solve them. This paper considers how an avionics system with selected personality characteristics could be designed to both improve a mission performance.