2.4 - Research: UAS GCS Human Factors Issue

Introduction

     The ‘Predator’ is the most popular military UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) used by the

United States Air Force (USAF) and is manufactured by General Atomics. The UAV system consists of multiple aircraft, ground control station, communication equipment, maintenance spares and crews. It is designed mainly for military operations, the missions include gathering of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. One of the most notable mission of ‘Predator’ was the killing of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban on August 5, 2009. Two ‘Hellfires’ missiles were fired from the drone, which was remotely controlled from Creech in Las Vegas. The ‘Predator’ is an efficient weapons to suppress enemy defense, support counterinsurgency operations and to find and eliminate targets.

Ground Control Station

     The main nerve system for entire ‘Predator’ operation is the ground control station

(GCS), also known as mission planning and control station (MPCS). Pilot launches, flies and recovers the vehicle; at the same time, receives and processes data from various sensors and controls those payloads. Equally important for the GCS is the interfaces between outside world and the UAV system from satellites, various communication platforms and terrain map databases. According to Fahlstrom & Gleason (2012), in order to accomplish UAV missions,

MPCS must incorporates the following subsystems:

- Vehicle controls and readouts

- Sensor or payload data displays and controls

- Map displays for planning of mission, monitoring the flight path and location of vehicle.

- Data link that transmit command to vehicle and payload and also receives status information from them.

- One or more computers to perform navigation, autopilot and payload control calculations.

- Communications links to other organizations for command, control and dissemination of information collected by the UAV.

To improve efficiency, the design of GCS must be ‘user-friendly’ to the user or operator. The interfaces integrate some of the basic navigation and flight functions. More importantly, the integration of automation is highly desirable to improve stability and reliability of controlled vehicle for line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight operations.

Human Factors

     It is necessary to understand the aspects of human factors in UAV operations in order to achieve safe and effective flight. Understanding how human behavior and limitations affect performance and establishing system to tackle these challenges in mitigating unsafe situations is important for UAV operations. In fact, UAV accidents still pose a great risk to property and people beneath the UAV flight path (Giese, Carr & Chahl, 2013).

     One of the critical flight phase that causes mishap is during landing. The pilot has no sense of the ground as in manned aircraft; with 30 degrees limited vision from the flight camera, he needs to perform very steep glide slope landing. (Pedersen, Cooke, Pringle, & Connor, 2006).

     Another mishap is caused by the mapping of various functions to the function keys on the operator’s keyboard. The authors illustrated with the keys that turn on/ off the lights and the keys that cut the engine are located adjacent to each other. In a dynamic environment with high workload, pilot may make mistake by pressing the wrong key, leading to the destruction of the

UAV.

Mitigation of Mishaps

     It is recommended to design a feedback system from the movement of actual UAV by using motors as vibrators/ shakers, which are placed under the crew’s seat and used to stimulate pilot’s vestibular and tactile sensation in order to overcome the landing mishap and lack of feedback during final approach. The second mishaps can be mitigated by understanding the functions of various keys on the keyboard during initial design phase. It is critical to establish understanding between system designers and operating crews (pilots) so that the function keys can be arranged such that critical systems and non-critical systems are segregated and labelled clearly to eliminate ambiguity. For critical systems, it is also recommended to install additional red color guard on the switches to prevent accidental engagement. Pilot needs to confirm the intention before lifting the guard and pressing the switch for further actions.

Conclusion

     It is paramount to design a system that enhances and improves pilot’s situation awareness within GCS environment so that necessary actions can be performed and carried out to mitigate aircraft destruction. The cockpit design of manned aircraft can be used as a guide to further improve the design of UAV control station. More importantly, the understanding and implementation of crew resource management initiated by NASA in 1979 to improve the cockpit safety of manned aircraft is a good start point.

Reference

Fahlstrom, P. G., & Gleason, T. J. (2012). Introduction to UAV Systems. West Sussex: Wiley.

Giese, S., Carr, D., & Chahl, J. (2013). Implications for Unmanned Systems Research of Military

UAV Mishap Statistics. IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV).

Pedersen, H. K., Cooke, N. J., Pringle, H. L., & Connor, O. (2006). UAV Human Factors:

Operator Perpectives. Advances in Human Performance & Cognitive Engineering Research Vol. 7.