Ergonomics of UAV/UCAV Mission Success: Considerations for Data Link, Control, and Display Issues

Abstract

The United States Armed Forces are turning to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and their combat-modified counterparts (UCAVs), to support human pilots and improve electronic surveillance and weapons deployment capabilities, particularly for risky suppression of enemy air-defense (SEAD) operations. Successful implementation and integration of UAVs/UCAVs into today's military requires focused attention toward human factors issues to ensure mission success and efficiency. In addition to considerations for satellite links, positive target verification, and assurance of collateral safety prior to weapon(s) launch, a primary concern is how operators interact with the UAV/UCAV system. This paper describes a portion of these concerns by presenting human factors considerations for UAV/UCAV-operator data links, vehicle control, and operator display issues. Relevant empirical findings are reviewed and implications for training and systems design are outlined.

The Role of Human Causal Factors in U.S. Army Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Accidents

“…A contributing factor to poor situational awareness is the delay in commands and information between the operator and the UAV system. Such signal transmission delays can be one second or more and can introduce "temporal and spatial uncertainties" for the operator (Mouloua et al, 2001b). Wickens (1992) has shown that delays of one second or more can lead to significant errors.…”

“…While not downgrading the effect of the other features, special attention must be paid to the displays, since they are often the primary source of UAV situational awareness for the operator(s). In a paper looking at the ergonomics of UAV mission success, Mouloua et al (2001b) discussed the massive amounts of information necessary for UAV operation and, noting the human limitation in processing such massive information, stated that selected displays must ensure that data presentation be in such a manner as to allow for efficient interpretation. Such displays must have operating characteristics that overcome viewing conditions such as ambient lighting and viewing angle.…”

Unmanned aerial systems

“…Mouloua et al [2001] researched the effect of vehicle control on operator performance. They found full manual control and full autonomous control to both be problematic.…”

“…With autonomous control, onboard systems direct flight activities. This shifts the operator's role to that of an observer and removes the human element out of the input-output loop [Mouloua, 2001]. This level of control prevents the human P o s t e r P a p e r operator from being able to intervene when system failures are observed, and increases the chances of a system mishap.…”

“…Due to an increase in semiautonomous UASs, the humanmachine interfaces must be designed to ensure proper data interpretation by operators [Mouloua, 2001].…”