The Effects On Operator Performance And Workload When Gunnery And Robotic Control Tasks Are Performed Concurrently

The purpose of this research was to examine operator workload and performance in a high risk, multi-task environment. Specifically, the research examined if a gunner of a Future Combat System, such as a Mounted Combat System, could effectively detect targets in the immediate environment while concurrently operating robotic assets in a remote environment. It also analyzed possible effects of individual difference factors, such as spatial ability and attentional control, on operator performance and workload. The experimental conditions included a gunner baseline and concurrent task conditions where participants simultaneously performed gunnery tasks and one of the following tasks: monitor an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) via a video feed (Monitor), manage a semi-autonomous UGV, and teleoperate a UGV (Teleop). The analysis showed that the asset condition significantly impacted gunnery performance with the gunner baseline having the highest number of targets detected (M = 13.600 , SD = 2.353), and concurrent Teleop condition the lowest (M = 9.325 , SD = 2.424). The research also found that high spatial ability participants tended to detect more targets than low spatial ability participants. Robotic task performance was also affect by the asset condition. The results showed that the robotic target detection rate was lower for the concurrent task conditions. A significant difference was seen between the UGV-baseline (80.1%) when participants performed UGV tasks only and UGV-concurrent conditions (67.5%) when the participants performed UGV tasks concurrently with gunnery tasks. Overall, this study revealed that there were performance decrements for the gunnery tasks as well as the robotic tasks when the tasks were performed concurrently