An Ecological Approach to the Supervisory Control of UAV Swarms

Conference paper (2014)
Department
Control & Operations (Aerospace Engineering) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2014 The Author(s)
DOI: https://doi.org/doi:10.4233/5b9adb73-9f9e-4785-865d-db5184efb888
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Published Date

12-08-2014

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Source:

IMAV 2014: International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Competition 2014, Delft, The Netherlands, August 12-15, 2014

Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Department

Control & Operations

Abstract

This research employs ecological interface design to improve the human machine interface of an existing ground control station for the supervisory control of UAV swarms. As a case study, a general ground surveillance mission with four UAVs is envisioned. An analysis of the swarming work domain is performed to generate a reduced set of means-end relations. This analysis leads to a novel design that shows predicted coverage and range of the UAVs in the swarm. An evaluation study with 10 participants showed that the new interface successfully enables operators to control a swarm of four UAVs and mitigate problems during mission execution. The results of the evaluation study showed that operators had a better system understanding and that it promoted creative problem solving activities to scenarios that could not be solved by fixed procedures.