AOL Defense 7 August 2012 by Sydney J Freedberg Jr
The US military depends on drones. But amidst the justifiable excitement over the rise of the robots, it's easy to overlook that today's unmanned systems are not truly autonomous
but rather require a lot of human guidance by remote control -- and bad
design often makes the human's job needlessly awkward, to the point of
causing crashes. Fixing that is the next big challenge for the unmanned industry.
"Too many screens with too much information, folks" -- that's the bottom line, said Col. John Dougherty, a Predator operations commander with the North Dakota National Guard, speaking at a workshop on the first day of 2012 conference of the
Association for Unmanned Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
(AUVSI) here in Vegas. "I am tired of all these black panels all over
the place," Dougherty went on, urging designers to "de-clutter for
sanity." But instead, he lamented, "they keep strapping the stuff on,"
adding more and more sub-systems each with its own unique and
user-unfriendly display.
"Human factors was not integrated into the original design of the
Predator," Dougherty said. "They were never given the time," because
what was originally a technology demonstration project proved so
valuable it was rushed into widespread use. As a result, he said, the
percentage of major mishaps caused by "human factors" is, ironically,
higher for Predators than for manned aircraft.
It's even harder to design a control system for troops operating
unmanned systems in the field, instead of from a relatively pristine
command center. Something as simple as having to look down at a handheld
display can distract a foot soldier from the threats around him, and
the light from the screen can give away his position at night, said Army
Staff Sergeant Stanley Sweet, an unmanned ground vehicle trainer at Fort Benning and veteran of two tours in Iraq.
Often, Sweet went on, when engineers develop control systems, "they want
to use a touchscreen, which looks neat -- [but] the sand, the dirt, the
mud, how is it going to affect the screen?" he asked. "How is it going
to hold up? My experience is they don't." Controls meant for foot troops
have to be physically rugged and conceptually uncomplicated, more like
game controllers than like militarized iPads. Infantrymen have no time
to navigate complex menus while wondering, "Oh, by the way am I going to
get shot at," said Sweet. "If the technology is slow, it will not be
used."
......
More autonomy isn't always the solution, however. When operators do have
to take more direct control of unmanned systems, they are badly
hampered simply by not being in the vehicle. "In a prior life I was in
the airplane, I was there, so a whole bunch of information was being fed
to me simply because I was in it," like whether the aircraft was
accelerating or not, said Col. Dougherty, a former F-16 pilot. When the
operator is in a command post on the ground, however, his screens may
tell him the vehicle is moving ahead or swiveling its sensor array, but
his inner ear and his peripheral vision are both telling him he's
standing still.
Some of the solutions on offer at the workshop included stereo images to
improve depth perception, audio cues in three dimensions to alert
operators to what's happening behind them, and virtual-reality
"telepresence" goggles that let the operator turn his head to see to the
side, instead of sitting still and watching images slide past on a
screen.
What's essential, said Dougherty, is to break down the cultural
preconceptions in the Air Force and elsewhere about what a proper
control interface looks like. What works for manned aircraft may not
translate to unmanned. "I don't need a cockpit to feel good about
myself," he said. "What you need is an appropriate interface, [whether]
it's a dome that I'm immersed in or it's a series of flat panels or
something that comes down over my eyes with gloves." Our thinking about
how best to control the new unmanned technology is still catching up to
the possibilities.
