An Examination of Latency and Degradation Issues in Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle Environments

Since the multidimensional knapsack problems are NP-hard problems, the exact solutions of knapsack problems often need excessive computing time and storage space. Thus, heuristic approaches are more practical for multidimensional knapsack problems as problems get large. This thesis presents the results of an empirical study of the performance of heuristic solution procedures based on the coefficients correlation structures and constraint slackness settings. In this thesis, the three representative greedy heuristics, Toyoda, Senju and Toyoda, and Loulou and Michaelides methods, are studied. The purpose of this thesis is to explore which heuristic of the three representative greedy heuristics perform best under certain combination of conditions between constraint slackness and correlation structures. This thesis examines three heuristics over 1120 problems which are all 2KPs with 100 variables created by four constraint slackness settings and 45 feasible correlation structures. Then we analyze why the best heuristic behaves as it does as a function of problem characteristic. The last chapter presents two new heuristics using knowledge gained in the study. When these new heuristics are competitively tested against the three original heuristics, the results show their better performances

The Effect of Pilot and Air Traffic Control Experiences & Automation Management Strategies on UAS Mission Task Performance

Unmanned aircraft are relied on now more than ever to save lives and support the troops in the recent Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The demands for UAS capabilities are rapidly increasing in the civilian sector. However, UAS operations will not be carried out in the NAS until safety concerns are alleviated. Among these concerns is determining the appropriate level of automation in conjunction with a suitable pilot who exhibits the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to safely operate these systems. This research examined two levels of automation: Management by Consent (MBC) and Management by Exception (MBE). User experiences were also analyzed in conjunction with both levels of automation while operating an unmanned aircraft simulator. The user experiences encompass three individual groups: Pilots, ATC, and Human Factors. Performance, workload, and situation awareness data were examined, but did not show any significant differences among the groups. Shortfalls and constraints are heavily examined to help pave the wave for future research

Systems approach to compliance with Australian airworthiness regulations for uninhabited aircraft systems

A considerable amount of research effort has, and continues to be invested into technologies and algorithms for capabilities which are forecast to be needed in future uninhabited vehicles. Much of this research is conducted with the aim of increasing the level of autonomy of these vehicles. However these technologies and capabilities provide only a part of the total system solution and must be integrated into an architecture that covers the entire vehicle system. This total system approach is particularly relevant since this is how airworthiness regulators consider Uninhabited Aircraft Systems. Airworthiness of uninhabited aircraft has been addressed by Australian aviation regulators. While the regulations may be in place, technical challenges still remain for the suppliers of these systems. For example, one of these unresolved technical challenges is the capability of uninhabited aircraft to “see and avoid” other aircraft. The operation of manned and uninhabited aircraft in the same airspace remains an issue and certification of uninhabited aircraft for unrestricted operations remains a challenge. The work described here has used the systems engineering approach to develop a high level architecture for a generic Uninhabited Aircraft System. The architecture was derived from airworthiness regulations. Since the primary difference between piloted and uninhabited aircraft is the presence of an on-board human pilot, this is the main area which this architecture describes. Australian airworthiness regulations were taken as the starting point to provide requirements. This ensured that the statutory requirements were considered in the viii development of the architecture. The requirements and functional analysis techniques from systems engineering were applied to the airworthiness regulations. This produced a set of derived requirements and a functional description of the UAS. The requirements analysis results in a “black box” or external description of the necessary properties and qualities of the system. Functional analysis produces a “white box” or internal description of the workings of the system which allows decomposition into smaller elements. The requirements and functional description which have been developed are generic and are applicable to many Uninhabited Aircraft Systems. The resultant architecture may be used in conjunction with operational requirements to develop a specific Uninhabited Aircraft System. Since the architecture is generic, it may also be used to provide the structure of a simulation model of an Uninhabited Aircraft System

Cognitively Sensitive User Interface for Command and Control Applications

While there are broad guidelines for display or user interface design, creating effective human-computer interfaces for complex, dynamic systems control is challenging. Ad hoc approaches which consider the human as an afterthought are limiting. This research proposed a systematic approach to human / computer interface design that focuses on both the semantic and syntactic aspects of display design in the context of human-in-the-loop supervisory control of intelligent, autonomous multi-agent simulated unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A systematic way to understand what needs to be displayed, how it should be displayed, and how the integrated system needs to be assessed is outlined through a combination of concepts from naturalistic decision making, semiotic analysis, and situational awareness literature. A new sprocket-based design was designed and evaluated in this research. For the practical designer, this research developed a systematic, iterative design process: design using cognitive sensitive principles, test the new interface in a laboratory situation; bring in subject matter experts to examine the interface in isolation; and finally, incorporate the resulting feedback into a full-size simulation. At each one of these steps, the operator, the engineer and the designer reexamined the results

Uninhabited aircraft design optimised for close formation air-refuelling flight

Uninhabited combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) are intended for carrying out high-risk combat missions with a high degree of precision, effectiveness and efficiency and without endangering pilots’ lives. An air refuelling system for UCAVs could bring out their full potential in wartime action, by extending their range capability and increasing their airborne time. Hence, the main aim of this PhD research programme was to develop a design and optimisation methodology for an innovative concept consisting of a large uninhabited tanker and a number of UCAVs flying in a close formation, with an optimised and fully autonomous air refuelling capability. The close formation flight of this tanker and UCAVs combination provides aerodynamic benefits which together with an optimised air-to-air refuelling sequence will result in a significantly extended combat radius and capability without unnecessarily compromising the UCAVs’ physical size. With a stealth design approach, the proposed combination could fly directly to a faraway destination without any intermediate stops, hence minimizing any risk of detection, with significant fuel and time savings. To fully exploit the potential advantages the above combination, both the autonomous tanker and the UCAV concepts have been designed through specially developed and separate synthesis methodologies and each aircraft was subsequently optimised for its respective operational role. An investigation into formation flight aerodynamics has also been conducted. A method for evaluating the associated aerodynamic benefits has been developed using a modified vortex-lattice approach, to automatically locate an optimal formation position for each aircraft in flight. A further method has also been developed to optimise the air refuelling sequence of the UCAVs by utilising the design synthesis and formation flight results aiming to maximise a range objective function. The above design synthesis and optimisation methodologies have all been integrated into an automated program written in Visual Basic.NET, featuring Graphical User Interfaces for simpler, faster and repetitive implementation

An analysis of human causal factors in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) accidents

MBA Professional ReportHuman error has been identified as the major contributor in many severe aviation mishaps, even for accidents involving Unmanned Aircraft (UA) systems. The Department of Defense (DOD) has used the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) taxonomy successfully for ten years to discover the human error in UA mishaps. It is important not to ignore the indisputable human presence in UA and the possible human-related causal factors in UA mishaps so we might be better able to reduce and prevent possible incidents. HFACS with its four main and 19 subcategories is a useful framework for identifying which factors have arisen historically, and which of them should have priority. The results of this study reveals that among 287 causal factors attributed to 68 accidents, 65 percent of the factors were associated with humans. Moreover, this study also discloses that the rater who categorizes the factors can differently observe, understand, and interpret the findings of mishap investigation; thus, human error may even impact the categorization phase due to the rater’s perception. The research concluded that even though HFACS carried out its functionality well, further study is needed to conduct intense statistical analysis with unlimited data and to validate HFACS with more case studies and various raters.http://archive.org/details/annalysisofhumca1094544637Captain, Turkish Air Force1st Lieutenant, Turkish ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Applying Queueing Theory and Architecturally-Oriented Early Stage Ship Design to the Concept of a Vessel Deploying a Fleet of Uninhabited Vehicles

Uninhabited vehicles technology is becoming important in naval warfare, providing an entirely new capability. By projecting power through the deployment of such vehicles, the exposure of humans to military threats is reduced. Although the Royal Navy is pursuing the employment of uninhabited vehicles for a variety of applications, the concept of a substantial fleet of such vehicles, operated from a mothership, able to host and support their operations during a mission scenario, is still a novel design challenge. In the initial design stages, when little of design effort has been committed, ship design details will be far from fully defined and are still amenable to change without significant implications on the programme budget, or schedule. Consequently, there is a need to consider how more informed, early, but yet significant design decisions can be made regarding the design of a mothership deploying a fleet of uninhabited vehicles. Delivering a mothership’s operational capability through a complement of uninhabited vehicles would determine the ship’s configuration. The proposed approach, developed as part of this research, consists of decision-making and ship concept design tools, and provides a holistic means of integrating aspects of a fleet of uninhabited vehicles into early stage mothership design. The first tool uses queueing theory and has been employed to capture the impact of the required facilities to host and support a fleet of uninhabited vehicles carried in the ship’s mission bay and subsequently impact on the overall ship design, as well as providing a measure of the ship’s mission effectiveness. The second tool utilises the advantages of architecturally-oriented initial ship design approach to obtain balanced mothership designs and perform some early stage naval architecture analyses. The overall aim of proposing a quantitative approach to mothership performance has been demonstrated, showing the impact of operating a fleet of uninhabited vehicles, resulting in large costly vessels. Several limitations identified during the development and the implementation of the new approach have suggested areas for future work. It was concluded that the proposed approach would be appropriate to inform early investigation of the implications of operating a fleet of uninhabited vehicles from a new mothership configuration, since it allows a relatively fast exploration and comparison of different mothership design options against cost-capability criteria. However, it is suggested that while favourable design options could emerge through such comparative studies, these would merit from further investigations using simulation techniques that could refine the inputs to such novel ship concepts

Mitigation of Human Supervisory Control Wait Times through Automation Strategies

The application of network centric operations principles to human supervisory control (HSC) domains means that humans are increasingly being asked to manage multiple simultaneous HSC processes. However, increases in the number of available information sources, volume of information and operational tempo, all which place higher cognitive demands on operators, could become constraints limiting the success of network centric processes. In time-pressured scenarios typical of networked command and control scenarios, efficiently allocating attention between a set of dynamic tasks is crucial for mission success. Inefficient attention allocation leads to system wait times, which could eventually lead to critical events such as missed times on targets and degraded overall mission success. One potential solution to mitigating wait times is the introduction of automated decision support in order to relieve operator workload. However, it is not obvious what automated decision support is appropriate, as higher levels of automation may result in a situation awareness decrement and other problems typically associated with excessive automation such as automation bias. To assess the impact of increasing levels of automation on human and system performance in a time-critical HSC multiple task management context, an experiment was run in which an operator simultaneously managed four highly autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) executing an air tasking order, with the overall goal of destroying a pre-determined set of targets within a limited time period. Four increasing levels automated decision support were investigated as well as high and low operational replanning tempos. The highest level of automation, management-byexception, had the best performance across several metrics but had a greater number of catastrophic events during which a UAV erroneously destroyed a friendly target. Contrary to expectations, the collaborative level of decision support, which provided predictions for possible periods of task overload as well as possible courses of action to relieve the high workload, produced the worst performance. This is attributable to an unintended consequence of the automation where the graphical visualization of the computer’s predictions caused users to try to globally optimize the schedules for all UAVs instead of locally optimizing schedules in the immediate future, resulting in them being overwhelmed. Total system wait time across both experimental factors was dominated by wait time caused by lack of situation awareness, which is difficult to eliminate, implying that there will be a clear upper limit on the number of vehicles that any one person can supervise because of the need to stay cognitively aware of unfolding events.Prepared for Boeing, Phantom Work

An Evaluation Schema for the Ethical Use of Autonomous Robotic Systems in Security Applications

We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems