Assessing operator strategies for real-time replanning of multiple unmanned vehicles

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Clare, Andrew S.^{a; *} | Maere, Pierre C.P.^b | Cummings, M.L.^a

Affiliations: [a] Aeronautics and Astronautics Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA | [b] Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Andrew Clare, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue 33-311, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Tel.: +1 617 253 0993; Fax: +1 617 253 4196; E-mail: aclare@mit.edu

Abstract: Future unmanned vehicles systems will invert the operator-to-vehicle ratio so that one operator controls a decentralized network of heterogeneous unmanned vehicles. This study examines the impact of allowing an operator to adjust the rate of prompts to view automation-generated plans on system performance and operator workload. Results showed that the majority of operators chose to adjust the replan prompting rate. The initial replan prompting rate had a significant framing effect on the replan prompting rates chosen throughout a scenario. Higher initial replan prompting rates led to significantly lower system performance. Operators successfully self-regulated their task-switching behavior to moderate their workload.

Keywords: Unmanned vehicles, automation, decentralized algorithms, human-machine interface, human supervisory control, human-computer interaction, mental workload

DOI: 10.3233/IDT-2012-0138

Journal: Intelligent Decision Technologies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 221-231, 2012