Abstract: The application of intelligent technology in nuclear power plants(NPPs) has made the operation and control more centralized and automated, while also bringing new and deeper human factors issues. As situational awareness(SA) is an important factor affecting personnel efficiency in complex human-machine systems, it is necessary to conduct research on the characteristics and improvement methods of personnel SA in intelligent control systems of NPPs..This article takes the automation level of control systems (intelligent control systems vs digital control systems) as the independent variable, selects typical scenarios for experiments, uses multimodal physiological measurement techniques and subjective scales to identify the SA characteristics of personnel under intelligent control systems, and proposes preventive measures for SA errors. The experimental results show that compared with the digital instrument control system, there is a significant difference in the skin electric data and fixation point data of the operator under the application of intelligent control system; The operator's attention level tends to be focused and communication frequency decreases to ensure that automatic actions are executed on time; The number of points that the operator focuses on has significantly increased, and the operator pays more attention to the changes in parameters on the interface. The level of SA required during the accident occurrence and handling stage is higher, but the level of attention/emotional arousal gradually increases in the event of an accident, and it may not be possible to quickly reach the highest level during the accident occurrence and handling stage, which may result in a mismatch between needs and reality. This study provides human factors data and theoretical support for the design optimization and implementation of intelligent control systems in the main control room of NPPs.