Report on Human Factors Issues Likely to Affect Air Launched Effects/Autonomous Loitering Effects (ALE)

Abstract

This report reviews human factors research on the supervision of multiple unmanned vehicles (UVs) as it affects human integration with Air-Launched Effects (ALE). Research finds that an operator cannot manually control more than 2-4 UVs even if assigning waypoints and controlling them sequentially. If UVs are allowed to coordinate autonomously and we let the operator control them as a group, this problem goes away but returns if the operator must monitor for targets. If automated target recognition (ATR) is introduced and the operator needs to approve or veto targets, then larger numbers of UVs can be supervised. However, now that the operator is no longer monitoring, the broader context is lost and the operator is unlikely to maintain situation awareness (SA). Displaying marked targets and UVs on a map can support SA; however, if the operator must also make direct use of multiple sensor feeds such as video, the changes in perspective among UVs are very difficult to reconcile. If views from multiple UVs are fused in a synthetic display eliminating the problem of multiple perspectives, resolution must be drastically reduced to fit on the screen. Now the operator must continuously zoom in and out to view the battlespace with sufficient resolution, which can also interfere with SA. Choices among these alternatives depend on the capabilities the Army desires. If "flooding the zone" is a desired strategy, then pairing a map display with ATR and operators who respond to the alarms independently could support it. If intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance is the objective, then pairing a fused display and map might work best. The purpose of this review is to point out these trade-offs so they can be made in an informed way.