Robots are gaining acceptance as team members in civilian and military operations. Controlling the remote operation of UGVs and UAVs is highly dependent upon a human operator’s ability to develop situation awareness (SA) on the robot, the task being performed and the physical environment. They need to be aware of where the vehicle is, what the vehicle is doing, and how tasks will lead to the mission goals. Operators must also consider the health of the overall unmanned system and how the environment affects vehicle status and the ability to complete tasks.

The development of SA in the control of unmanned vehicles is difficult due to limitations in impoverished sensory information, attention resource deficits, task/environmental stressors, inadequate support for team operations and shared SA, workload in the visually-demanding task, and poor integration of SA data at the control interface. In addition, where autonomy is added to compensate for some of these problems and provide for a lower operator-to-vehicle ratio, additional problems associated with supervisory control can contribute to SA challenges.

To support SA in human-robotic interaction, it is important to understand what the SA requirements are for tasking and controlling unmanned vehicles. The robot, and its associated displays and interfaces, is the operator’s primary means for developing SA on the elements and events in the task environment. The operator needs to be concerned with knowledge of the task performance or progress toward meeting operational goals.

SA Technologies has been active in conducting basic research on the real challenges involved in UAV and UGV operations, and in developing solutions for effective interfaces to support SA in these distributed, team–based operations.

Contact us today to learn more about situation awareness for UAVs and UGVs