Human-Machine Interface Development for Common Airborne Sense and Avoid Program

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are starting to access manned airspace today and this trend will grow substantially as the number of UAS and their associated missions expand. A key challenge to safely integrating UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS) is providing a reliable means for UAS to sense and avoid (SAA) other aircraft. The US Air Force is addressing this challenge through the Common Airborne Sense and Avoid (C-ABSAA) program. C-ABSAA is developing a sophisticated “sense-and-avoid” capability that will be integrated onboard larger UAS. This paper summarizes human factors activities associated with enabling this revolutionary capability. Existing knowledge was reviewed and crosschecked to formulate a first draft set of minimum information requirements for SAA tasks. A gap analysis spawned an intruder depiction study and an operator requirements survey. Finally, operator interface prototypes were designed to support: 1) a minimum information set for SAA, as well as 2) the availability of several advanced situation assessment and maneuver guidance aids. Through collaboration with NASA’s UAS in the NAS project, these concepts were incorporated into a UAS ground control station for formal evaluation through a high fidelity human-in-the-loop simulation.