Background. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are nowadays widely used in various domains. Their use is connected with a broad range of psychological problems, in particular, within engineering psychology.
Objective. In this paper, typical engineering-psychological problems of interface design for UAVs are considered.
Design. Literature survey on topic related to UAV control. Results. Problems of managing sensory isolation, negative effects of automation failures, connection losses and monotony, as well as problems of supporting the work of UAVs operator teams were identified and solutions proposed. We also study methodological and methodical questions within the domain of interface design for controlling UAVs.
Conclusions. Designing interfaces for UAVs is a complex psychological task. There are perspectives of use for virtual reality, AI, predictive displays, and adaptive automation. There is need for general recommendations concerning UAVs interface development.
PDF: Download
Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicles; engineering-psychological design; virtual reality; artificial intelligence; projective displays; adaptive automation;
Available Online 31.03.2020
Table 1. The main psychological problems of UAV control
|
Sensory isolation |
Lack of auditory and proprioceptive flight information, limited visual information, image transmission delays, poor image quality |
|
Automation levels |
Significant differences in the level of automation, various automation of different flight segments, automation errors |
|
Poor communication |
Poor radio communication |
|
Unusual flight modes |
Long monotonous flight |
|
Selection of operator teams |
Problems of functions separation between operators, control of several UAVs by one operator |
|
Operator selection and training |
Operator training requirements, skills transfer |
|
Stress and emotional problems |
Automation errors, UAV loss, erroneous decisions |
Table 2. UAV Interface Design Guidelines Requirements (Hobbs & Lyall, 2016).
|
General requirements |
General requirements for HMI - consistency of notation, feedback, error recovery, etc. |
|
Task descriptions |
What the operator should do without describing that way |
|
Display Requirements |
What information should be presented without a description of the presentation method |
|
Control Requirements |
What impacts should an operator have on UAVs without a description of the impact method |
|
Interface Properties |
Physical and functional interface requirements |
The work was carried out as part of a research project under the RFBR grant «Development of the fundamental principles of building intelligent integrated safety systems for unmanned aerial vehicles in the airspace of the smart city». Contract N19-29- 06091 mk
Velichkovskiy B.B. (2020). Engineering-psychological problems of unmanned aerial vehicles interface design. National Psychological Journal, [Natsional’nyy psikhologicheskiy zhurnal], (13)1, 31–39