Provocation: Is the UAV Control Ratio the Right Question?

E R G O N O M I C S I N D E S I G N 7 here are a variety of ongoing attempts to generate unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies to exploit the advantages that these semiautomated and automated airborne platforms promise to render. (Although we refer specifically to UAVs here, our arguments apply, in principle, to all remote vehicles whatever their medium of operation. The principles themselves also extend to other forms of nontransport-based entities.) With regard to such operations, the collective community is searching for the ratio between operator(s) and vehicle(s) that will prove most efficient and effective. At present, the estimates of this ratio vary widely around unity, where unity is a ratio of 1:1, UAV:operator. Current operational systems require a whole team of human supporters to launch, control, direct, recover, and maintain even one single UAV. Despite these difficulties, design aspirations are for ratios that significantly exceed unity, perhaps to near-term goals of 4:1 up to “blue sky” representations of perhaps hundreds of UAVs to a single operator. Theoretically, one can continue to push for ever greater numbers of UAVs per operator. The functional design questions that follow are (a) should researchers and designers continue to strive for this ever higher ratio, and, (b) if they decide to go forward in this direction, what is the modal number? As with all design questions, the immediate answer is simple: It depends. However, in this article, we discuss whether in reality this is the appropriate question to pose. The context of this question cannot remain totally unbound, so here we argue the case with regard to the dismounted infantry soldier. For an individual who is involved primarily in close combat conditions, human-centered design principles support the simple alternative – that the ratio is either one or none. It is this provocative assertion we wish to examine.