Eyes in the sky: Human factors and uninhabited air vehicles

When observations are made using uninhabited air vehicles (UAVs) a distinction can be made between human factors problems associated with the perceptual quality of the display and those associated with the searching of large spaces. This article summarises the findings of behavioural experiments that investigated both these domains, using a UAV simulator. Participants’ performance when detecting targets improved when the display frame rate was reduced, meaning that performance improved when less information was transmitted from a UAV, and this finding was replicated under conditions when the images from the UAV were subject to a severe amount of jitter. In large spaces, active camera control (where a joystick was used to control the orientation of the cameras) allowed rapid searching, but at the expense of some accuracy. Training is required if operators are to exploit the full potential of such control systems