Minimizing Human Factors Mishaps in Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) mishaps attributable to lack of attention to human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) science in their ground control stations (GCSes) are alarmingly high, and UAS-specific HF/E engineering standards are years away from development. The ANSI/HFES 100-2007 human factors standard is proposed as a specification for the design of UASes because of the similarity between general-purpose computer workstations and GCSes. Data were collected from 20 UASes to determine the applicability of commercial standards to GCS designs. Analysis shows that general-purpose computer workstations and UAS GCSes are up to 98% similar. Therefore, our findings suggest that the application of commercial human factors standards may be a good solution for minimizing UAS mishaps.