A Decadal Revisiting of the Assessment of Pilot Control Interfaces for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

Abstract

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) control design is critical for mitigating the negative human factors effects associated with operating the aircraft remotely, such as latency in the transfer of information and loss of sensory information. With this in mind, we conducted a systematic review of the human factors UAS literature to identify control automation and input devices with the objective of modernizing the seminal Williams (2007) assessment of UAS control interfaces. We also identified compatible automation-input device pairs, and characterized the literature based on the control strategies. The characterization of the literature reflected our identified compatibilities between the levels of control and input devices. Generally, the levels of UAS control identified by Williams (2007) are still prevalent in the literature, but we identified two levels that he did not account for in his taxonomy, including guided manual control (similar to LNAV/VNAV guidance in manned aircraft) and objective control (in which the remote pilot in command uploads an objective to the UAS and automation creates a route and controls the aircraft to meet the objective).