Abstract
In this paper we discuss how team configuration may influence how information is shared among team members for low-altitude Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) operations. NASA collected and analyzed observation data gathered during a series of field tests for the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) project. The field tests were part of a larger effort aimed at advancing the UTM concept, conducted at six test-sites across the USA. Ground control station (GCS) concepts, flight-crew composition, and crew-size varied within and across test-sites. Flight crews took two strategic approaches to organizing their teams. The first of the two approaches was implemented by one third of the flight crews. These crews integrated the role of UTM operator into the duties of existing crew members, merging the current roles with this new one, keeping the UTM operator collocated with the flight crew. The remaining two thirds implemented a distributed team configuration, where a single UTM operator distributed support across multiple crews. Results from our data collection efforts revealed that UTM operator location influenced whether flight crews used verbal communication versus displays to acquire UTM information.
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Notes
- 1.
Note that the question options were uneven, as six personnel roles were listed but only three displays.
- 2.
Note that the question options were uneven, as six personnel roles were listed but only two displays.
- 3.
9% of respondents reported they had no display, however, absence of a visual display does not mean that the participant received no information, as many flight crews were designed to receive information via voice.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank our partners from academia and industry for their participation in the UTM project.
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Dao, Q.V., Martin, L., Mercer, J., Wolter, C., Gomez, A., Homola, J. (2019). Information Displays and Crew Configurations for UTM Operations. In: Chen, J. (eds) Advances in Human Factors in Robots and Unmanned Systems. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 784. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94346-6_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94346-6_7
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