Lecture
Associate professorship lecture – Arezoo Sarkheyli-Hägele

Artificial Situation Awareness: From Context Sensing to Anticipatory Intelligence

We are happy to welcome you to Arezoo Sarkheyli-Hägeles’ associate professorship (docent) lecture. The lecture will be followed by a celebratory mingle in the lecture room.

Abstract

Artificial Situation Awareness (ASA) builds on the classical notion of situational awareness, defined as the perception of elements in the environment, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status, and extends these capabilities to artificial agents and intelligent systems. Unlike general context awareness, which primarily focuses on detecting and adapting to static or momentary contextual conditions such as location, time, or user state, Artificial Situation Awareness emphasizes dynamic interpretation, temporal reasoning, and anticipatory decision support. ASA systems aim not only to identify contextual cues, but to understand what a situation signifies in relation to human or system goals, and to infer how it is likely to evolve. This aligns with broader perspectives on situational awareness in artificial agents, where awareness entails making sense of ongoing events and their implications for action.

Through selected case studies, this lecture demonstrates how ASA bridges the gap between sensing and decision‑making. By moving beyond simple context recognition, ASA enables systems to grasp situational dynamics, support timely and informed interventions, and enhance resilience, adaptability, and human‑in‑the‑loop intelligence in real-world environments.