CASE STUDIES

Display Design for Enhanced UxV Control

VTUAV RQ-8A Fire Scout Vertical Takeoff and Landing Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (VTUAV) System. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

The Problem

The Navy uses unmanned vehicles to collect information about the battlefield from the air, ground surface, and underwater. To optimize performance of these vehicles, operators use automated planning tools that match vehicle capabilities to a warfighter’s information needs, while considering factors such as weather and remaining fuel. While these tools usually create efficient plans, they sometimes make mistakes. It is the operator’s job to determine when the planning tools have failed, and to create new plans to successfully finish the mission. This requires the operator to understand both the mission itself and how the automated tool plans for that mission.

The Solution

Aptima helps the unmanned vehicle operator face this challenge by applying its unique human-centered approach to information fusion. Comprised of three key processes, this approach ensures that data are fused into knowledge that is useful for mission action:

Identify Warfighters’ Information Needs – Aptima’s cognitive scientists interact with operational subject matter experts, using innovative task analysis and knowledge elicitation techniques, to identify and model information requirements and decision-making processes. Aptima has helped to pioneer the use of Cognitive Work Analysis, a particularly robust method for identifying mission objectives and the constraints that automated planning tools impose, in this process.

Account for Factors that Influence Information Quality – Aptima’s modeling experts represent the crucial parameters that affect the quality of incoming information, such as uncertainty resulting from sensor limitations. These models inform the warfighter about the quality of the fused data.

Visualize the Fused Information – Design experts use innovative visualization and interface design techniques to present fused information, and the factors that affect quality of that information in an intuitive display. Designs are driven by the warfighters’ information requirements for building mission awareness and understanding of automated planning systems.

The end result is MiDAS – Mission Displays for Autonomous Systems. MiDAS gives operators a clear picture of the current mission battle space and provides the information they need to handle unanticipated situations when planning tools fail. In short, MiDAS shows the operator both the mission plans and how well those plans satisfy mission objectives.

UxV Control

MiDAS creates intelligent clusters of information, organized by mission objective and by information detail, to enhance operator awareness and understanding. As a result, the operator can easily locate different levels of information in response to changing conditions, and can clearly see both the battle space and the automated plans. Because system constraints are clearly shown on the MiDAS interface, the operator always has information about how the planning tool works.

The Results

Aptima’s MiDAS display technology is already at work improving the display requirements of warfighters. This innovative approach to display design enhances the ability of unmanned vehicle operators to successfully conduct their missions. In addition, the display capabilities of MiDAS have potential military applications operators must use and understand complicated information and interact with sophisticated automated systems.