Research Considerations for Managing Future Unmanned Systems

The next generation of unmanned systems (UxVs) will require a significantly different relationship with operators than what is implemented to date. Unmanned systems will perform an increasing number of missions in the future, with expanded capabilities. Furthermore, there is a major push to reduce the manning requirements for UxV missions from what is typical today. Operators of these next generation systems will become supervisory controllers of increasingly advanced automation. Research is required to better understand the information requirements for operators to effectively supervise these new systems. Metrics and concepts of employment are required to define what it means to safely and efficiently conduct missions in this future supervisory control context. We contend that establishing context dependent, operator state and mission performance metrics will be critical for assessing different control paradigms and user interfaces. Additionally, realistic synthetic environments are necessary to adequately assess the performance impacts of the various mission contexts an operator will encounter. This paper suggests research foci that would be useful in defining the roles and information requirements for human operators of these next generation unmanned systems.