Interface Design for Unmanned Vehicle Supervision through Hybrid Cognitive Task Analysis

While there is currently significant interest in developing Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) that can be supervised by a single operator, the majority of these systems focus on Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) domains. One domain that has received significantly less attention is the use of multiple UASs to insert or extract supplies or people. To this end, MAVIES (Multi-Autonomous Vehicle Insertion-Extraction System) was developed to allow a single operator the ability to supervise a primary cargo Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) along with multiple scouting UAVs. This paper will detail the development of the design requirements generated through a Hybrid Cognitive Task Analysis (hCTA) and the display that resulted from these efforts. A major innovation in the hCTA process in this effort was the alteration of the traditional decision ladder process to specifically identify decision-making tasks that must be augmented with automation.