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Defense Intelligence Reference Document Cognitive Limits On Simultaneous Control Of Multiple Unmanned Spacecraft

Defense Intelligence Agency · 31 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 15 December 2010, is a Defense Intelligence Agency report from its Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It looks at how many unmanned spacecraft one human pilot could control during future deep-space missions, drawing on research into air traffic control and piloting of multiple unmanned vehicles. It concludes that the limits are about 16 craft for simple tasks, 7 for moderately complex tasks and 4 for complex mixed fleets. It adds that physiological measures can signal when an operator is overloaded.

  • p. 5 …While additional future research may help to increase the automation component of aircraft and mission control…
  • p. 6 …to possible spacecraft missions. When a pilot or ATC operator is in control of several craft…
  • p. 19 …Correlation analyses were performed with the number of aircraft the operator was currently controlling. No adjustment…
  • p. 23 …Examples of several UAVs and their primary missions are shown in Figure 6. Control of vehicles…
  • p. 27 …of four craft can be controlled and tasked to complete missions. The number of four is…
  • p. 28 …Future research may increase the automation component of aircraft and mission control, but there is no…
  • p. 31 …Mission control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles: a workload analysis. Hum Factors 47, 479-487 (2005…
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interfaces reduces the maximum number of aircraft controllable to seven. 51 A final
study looks at an abstract model of continuous re-planning in different time intervals.
This study observes that subjects reacted differently, but in three groups, to automated
suggestions for re-planning. The authors conclude that human-automation consensus
is the primary driver of system performance. 52 In other words, the human-task
interaction must be taken into account, as suggested above by Averty, Loft, and others
outlined above.
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.