Chapter 1-Introduction Military usage of unmanned systems Military operations increasingly incorporate unmanned systems at sea, on the ground, and in the air. The mandate for utilizing these advanced vehicles in combat situations comes from the top levels of government [1]. Motivation for doing so springs from the ability such vehicles have for reducing military costs and preserving the lives of service personnel. The definition of unmanned systems has expanded to include aerial vehicles, ground vehicles, water surface vehicles, and submersibles. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) form a subset of the unmanned systems. Figure 1 shows the Predator [2] and the X-45 [3], two of the larger UAVs that see frequent use in military operations. In Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, almost 400,000 flight hours have been logged by UAVs, not including hand-launched systems [4]. The combat commanders recognize the important role unmanned vehicles fill in military situations (such as gathering reconnaissance data or disposing of improvised explosive devices) and are pushing for further development and incorporation of these technologies. The Department of Defense Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032 details a vision for the development of all types of unmanned systems [4]. It is their goal to seamlessly integrate manned and unmanned systems for optimal mission execution. According to the timeline, UAVs will be able to perform a full range of mission tasks by 2030 including: surveillance, counter air strikes, penetrating strikes, and airlifts. There will be a need for increased autonomy as these vehicles perform more complex tasks in dynamic environments.

No abstract

No abstract

Increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles on the battlefield is driving a transition of human operators into supervisory roles. In these roles, operators will have access to mission data and they will be required to make rapid decisions based on criteria, prior experience, and instincts. To facilitate rapid decisions, an interface must provide information in a format that operators can readily understand. A study was performed to investigate an operator’s ability to rapidly understand flight path data presented in either top-down 2D or perspective 3D. Additionally, the study aimed to explore the benefits of interactivity when observing the 3D scenarios. It was found that participants in the 3D group with automatic camera movement were not more accurate but were faster than participants who saw a top-down 2D view or a 3D view with manual camera control. This suggests that there may be benefits to a 3D interface for displaying three-dimensional path data. It also confirms that providing an interactive interface will not necessarily lead to higher performance, as the user may not use it efficiently.