Augmented Reality Tool for the Situational Awareness Improvement of UAV Operators

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Cognitive Systems

Background:

• Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly prevalent, necessitating pilot adaptation to Ground Control Station (GCS) operations.
• Current GCS interfaces present data on separate screens, creating a cognitive burden for operators managing multiple information streams.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an Augmented Reality (AR) tool designed to improve situational awareness for Medium-Altitude Long-Endurance (MALE) UAV operators.
• To address the challenge of information fusion in GCS by integrating critical data into a single, intuitive AR interface.

Main Methods:

• Development of an AR system with functionalities for route orientation and target identification, adhering to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standards.
• Experimental evaluation of the AR tool's impact on operator performance and situational awareness in simulated MALE UAV operations.

Main Results:

• The AR tool successfully provided route orientation, enabling operators to visualize upcoming waypoints and planned flight paths.
• Target identification functionality facilitated rapid localization of targets, even with occlusions, enhancing operational efficiency.
• Experimental results demonstrated a significant improvement in UAV operator situational awareness.

Conclusions:

• The proposed AR tool effectively mitigates the cognitive load associated with multi-screen GCS interfaces.
• The system's adherence to NATO standards ensures potential for broad adoption across various GCS platforms.
• Augmented reality presents a viable solution for enhancing operator performance and safety in MALE UAV operations.