Control of Multiple-UAVs: A Workload Analysis

Abstract

Fifty-four licensed pilots carried out multiple surveillance missions on two high-fidelity simulations representing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In Experiment 1, pilots were required to operate a single UAV through three different mission conditions: a baseline condition, one that offloaded relevant information to the auditory channel, and one that provided automation of flight path control. In Experiment 2, pilots operated two UAVs simultaneously through the same three mission conditions. Pilots were responsible for the following tasks: (1) mission completion, (2) target search, and (3) systems monitoring. Results of the experiment suggest that automation and auditory offloading can be beneficial to performance by reducing interference between tasks, and thus alleviating overall workload.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2003
Accession Number
ADA446844

Entities

People

  • Christopher Dow Wickens
  • Stephen R. Dixon

Organizations

  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Aircrafts
  • Automation
  • Cognitive Workload
  • Flight Paths
  • Human Factors Engineering
  • Human-Machine Interaction
  • Instructions
  • Parallel Computing
  • Parallel Processing
  • Psychology
  • Reliability
  • Remotely Piloted Vehicles
  • Surveillance
  • Task Performance And Analysis
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • Workload

Readers

  • Aviation Science / Aeronautics.
  • Brain and Cognitive Science; Experimental Psychology; Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Autonomous Capabilities and Mission Reconnaissance.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs
  • Space
  • Space - Satellites