Team Cognition as a Mechanism for Developing Collaborative and Proactive Decision Support in Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems

Abstract

Remotely piloted aircraft systems RPAS are steadily increasing in their presence and role in the Military's overall strategic operational picture. The benefits of RPAS are apparent, ranging from saving time, money, and lives. Yet, the utilization of RPAS is still very challenging in many different aspects. Teams have become a central focus of RPAS due to their many benefits. Yet, teamwork is challenging and the RPAS community must continue to attempt to understand how to support it. A specific aspect of teamwork that has proven over the years to be of paramount importance is team cognition. In this paper, we discuss how team cognition needs to be considered during the development of collaborative and proactive RPAS decision support. We highlight the concept of team cognition accounting for multiple perspectives, outline an integrative perspective of team cognition for the RPAS domain, and conclude by outlining multiple design objectives for utilizing team cognition as a mechanism for RPAS decision support.