Page 23 - Innovations in Intelligent Machines

Predicting Operator Capacity for Supervisory
Control of Multiple UAVs

M.L. Cummings, Carl E. Nehme, Jacob Crandall, and Paul Mitchell

Humans and Automation Laboratory,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Abstract. With reduced radar signatures, increased endurance, and the removal of
humans from immediate threat, uninhabited (also known as unmanned) aerial vehi-
cles (UAVs) have become indispensable assets to militarized forces. UAVs require
human guidance to varying degrees and often through several operators. However,
with current military focus on streamlining operations, increasing automation, and
reducing manning, there has been an increasing effort to design systems such that
the current many-to-one ratio of operators to vehicles can be inverted. An increas-
ing body of literature has examined the effectiveness of a single operator controlling
multiple uninhabited aerial vehicles. While there have been numerous experimental
studies that have examined contextually how many UAVs a single operator could
control, there is a distinct gap in developing predictive models for operator capacity.
In this chapter, we will discuss previous experimental research for multiple UAV con-
trol, as well as previous attempts to develop predictive models for operator capacity
based on temporal measures. We extend this previous research by explicitly consid-
ering a cost-performance model that relates operator performance to mission costs
and complexity. We conclude with a meta-analysis of the temporal methods outlined
and provide recommendation for future applications.

1 Introduction

With reduced radar signatures, increased endurance and the removal of
humans from immediate threat, uninhabited (also known as unmanned) aerial
vehicles (UAVs) have become indispensable assets to militarized forces around
the world, as proven by the extensive use of the Shadow and the Predator in
recent conflicts.
Current UAVs require human guidance to varying degrees and often
through several operators. For example, the Predator requires a crew of two
to be fully operational. However, with current military focus on streamlin-
ing operations and reducing manning, there has been an increasing effort to
design systems such that the current many-to-one ratio of operators to vehicles
can be inverted (e.g., [1]). An increasing body of literature has examined the

M.L. Cummings et al.: Predicting Operator Capacity for Supervisory Control of Multiple UAVs,
Studies in Computational Intelligence (SCI) 70, 11–37 (2007)
www.springerlink.com c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007