Towards Intelligent Operator Interfaces in Support of Autonomous UVS Operations

Experience in recent conflicts indicates the employment of Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS) will continue to grow in coming years. New UVS capabilities involve greater complexity of payloads and interactions within unmanned vehicle (UV) subsystems, among UVS and between UVS and other systems, including Command and Control (C2) systems. This introduces additional requirements for UV operators. In some situations UV operators easily can be faced with cognitive information overload, while increasing UVS complexity and future concepts of employment such as single-operator multiple-UV operation require increased operator attention. In order to attain the required level of operator efficiency, it is necessary to introduce higher levels of autonomy within the UVS subsystems in conjunction with the use of intelligent operator interfaces. This will allow for greater flexibility and effectiveness in supporting future mission requirements wherein UVS operator interfaces are able to reduce the work load, and allow operators to function at higher levels of abstraction. In this context, this study justifies the employment of intelligent systems to attain higher levels of autonomy for a specific family of UVS, which are the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The proposed approach is based on various automation management strategies, combined with the use of formal languages for effectively capturing information elements flowing between the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operator and the UAS subsystems. This paper also proposes a technical approach towards the experimentation of these UAS concepts in a simulation environment using the Coalition Battle Management Language (C-BML) as an enabling technology for the interoperation of the C2 systems with some of the UVS subsystems. Presented at the International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (16th) held in Quebec City, Canada on 21-23 June 2011. Document includes briefing charts (34 slides, title same as rept.)