Management of Multiple Dynamic Human Supervisory Control Tasks MIT-Boeing Research Project Review Meeting – Feb. 2, 2005 Management of Multiple Dynamic Human Supervisory Control Tasks Paul Mitchell – MIT Humans and Automation Lab

Outline Motivation Experiment Objective Experiment Scenario Experimental Design Human-Automation Interaction Modeling Wait Time Modeling Key Experiment Display Elements Expected Research Results / Benefits Multi Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Experiment (MAUVE) Program Demo HAL Lab Tour

Motivation Consequences of NCW Volume of information Number of information sources Operational tempo Greater attentional demands on operators Efficient attention allocation becomes critical to human & system performance!

Experiment Objectives To investigate: How operators cope with managing multiple HSC processes simultaneously What kinds of decision support can aid operators in these situations What effects human performance limitations have on the overall system

UAV domain has immediate military applications NCW concept of swarms Experiment Scenario UAV domain has immediate military applications NCW concept of swarms Subject is an operator supervising four separate, independent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Objective: To destroy a set of targets (which may change) within a certain time period, while taking minimum damage from enemy air defenses Predator and Global Hawk, both UCAVs currently in use.

Experimental Design – Independent Variables Level of Decision Support (Scheduling Assistance) Between subjects 4 levels Manual = LOA 1 Passive = LOA Active = LOA 4 Super Active = LOA 6 Amount of Schedule Re-Planning Within subjects 3 levels None Infrequent Frequent The Patriot missile battery, a prominent example of a high level of automation in use today.

Experimental Design – Dependent Variables Primary task performance – Number/priority of deadlines missed Performance score Combines target and threat events To provide insight into overall test session performance Secondary task performance – Chat Box Percentage correct answers Situation awareness metric Average time to respond Workload metric Wait Times Result from deviations from “ideal” mission plan

Human-Automation Interaction Modeling First proposed by Olsen and Wood (2004) with regard to traditional human-robot interactions Interaction Time (IT) The human operator is actively engaged in improving the performance of the vehicle, allowing overall mission accomplishment to occur Neglect Time (NT) The vehicle is operating autonomously, needing no input from an operator to continue its mission Wait Time (WT) The vehicle needs input from the human to execute its mission

Human-Automation Interaction Modeling

Workload Wait Times (W-WT) Result from operator overload Wait Time Modeling Wait times dramatically impact system performance and risk of failure in time-critical applications (eg. C2) Two main categories Workload Wait Times (W-WT) Result from operator overload Situation Awareness Wait Times (SA-WT) Result from loss of situational awareness Work-in-progress Need to accurately model then measure individual WT components WT can be further broken down

Key Experiment Display Elements – Mission Plan Current mission plan for each UAV is shown UAV that operator is currently interacting with highlighted in green Active targets = red diamonds Threat areas = yellow circles Way Points = black triangles Loiter Points = directed circles

Key Experiment Display Elements - Decision Support Separate marching timeline for each UAV Represents mission plan as laid out on map display Current/future tasks color coded by action 1 3 2 4

Expected Research Results / Benefits Validation of wait time models Conclusions on how different types of wait times influence the overall cost function and fan out Workload predictive model based on wait times Further results on the validity of an imbedded chat box as a measure of secondary workload An evaluation of the timeline decision support tool, with comparisons across its various levels and effectiveness under different re-planning conditions

MAUVE Demo & HAL Lab Tour Questions?