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home > July 16, 2007 issue > article
A tool to aid multitasking UAV operators
By Greg Slabodkin
Special to Defense Systems
A three-year software development project aimed at enabling a single operator to control multiple unmanned aerial vehicles, a prime goal for network-centric warfare operations, is headed to a conclusion with a recent award of a final year funding.
The Multi-UAV Agency (Mage) software, which is being developed by Sytronics Inc., uses intelligent Java agents to broker requests and handle display. The whole thing works through a speech interface that allows for hands-free control and intuitive interaction by talking with the system.
Voice input employs a speaker independent, vocabulary-limited Nuance system, and the voice output uses Microsoft Speech SDK.
“What we’re looking at are ways for a UAV controller or mission coordinator to access all the information he or she needs to do their job, including things like weather feeds and chat feeds, so an operator can oversee four or five UAVs,” said Scott Grigsby, vice president for intelligent systems at Sytronics.
The tools Sytronics is developing include course-of-action planning aids, a timeline management tool, a context-enhanced direct voice input interface and net-centric integration.
They will enable dynamic mission planning and anticipatory decision planning within net-centric environments that could be seen in the relatively near future, said Mark Draper, senior engineering research psychologist for the Human Effectiveness Directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which is sponsoring the $3.1 million Mage program.
“There are several challenges, including overly intensive control for the human operator, limited situational awareness, limited fault tolerance, limited bandwidth and potentially lengthy system time delays,” he said. “The main focus of Mage is to address the UAV [single] operator challenge of interacting with multiple net-centric information feeds as well as multiple system applications simultaneously.”
The program so far has focused on enhancements to the existing Predator UAV ground station by incorporating improved human factors engineering of existing interfaces, in addition to immersive and 3-D perspective technologies.
During the third and final year, Sytronics will establish formal transition paths for various Mage tools. Potential customers include UAV manufacturers and the Predator Program Office.
“We’re working with the Rapid Reaction Team at AFRL which is working with the Predator program office to develop their next-generation ground station because they know that changes are needed,” Grigsby said.
“It’s just not adequate now for where the Predator is going.”
A standard Predator station includes a sensor operator and pilot plus a mission coordinator.
“The idea is to look at Mage as a kind of a replacement for the mission coordinator role,” he said.
The Mage program received valuable feedback from UAV operators during a July 2006 visit to Creech Air Force Base, Nev., facilitating better definition and development of the software.
Ultimately, the goal is to develop a set of decision-support tools that can be applied across several command and control domains.
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