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Defense Intelligence Reference Document Cognitive Limits On Simultaneous Control Of Multiple Unmanned Spacecraft

Defense Intelligence Agency · 31 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 15 December 2010, is a Defense Intelligence Agency report from its Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It looks at how many unmanned spacecraft one human pilot could control during future deep-space missions, drawing on research into air traffic control and piloting of multiple unmanned vehicles. It concludes that the limits are about 16 craft for simple tasks, 7 for moderately complex tasks and 4 for complex mixed fleets. It adds that physiological measures can signal when an operator is overloaded.

  • p. 5 …the focus of this paper as little work has been done in this specific area. However…
  • p. 6 …It is not a surprise that there is little work in this specific area - in fact…
  • p. 9 …The sympathetic system mediates response to stress, while the parasympathetic system works to maintain homeostasis and…
  • p. 13 …Only 1300 obeyed a Presidential order to return to work under the "peril to national safety…
  • p. 16 …during the 8-hour workday, night time after work. Additionally, controllers completed the State- Trait Anxiety…
  • p. 18 …time, an observation they note confirms earlier work on F4 crew members performing flight tasks of…
  • p. 21 …model with the SME approach doesn't work for predicting workload in the ATC task. 39…
  • p. 22 …it is intended for the pilot to work alongside the automation rather than rely on it…
  • p. 25 …This measure is called utilization and previous work in systems engineering 48 and queuing theory has…
  • p. 27 …The number of four is consistent with standard estimates of human working memory being able to…
  • p. 28 …picture can be maintained, even with external working memory augmentation, for more than about 16 objects…
  • p. 29 …Vigilance requires hard mental work and is stressful. Hum Factors 50, 433-441 (2008). 14 Dussault…
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The enteric system executes control of smooth muscle. Although the CNS and PNS are
anatomically distinct, they are functionally intertwined. When discussing the function of
the autonomic division, it is customary to refer to it as the Autonomic Nervous System,
or ANS. 7
Changes in global arousal or activation through changing workload can result in
changes in physiological activity. These measures are advantageous as changes are
measurable continuously, in real-time, and usually unobtrusively in a naturalistic
setting. The drawback of using physiology alone is that there is no direct measure of
primary task performance.
Cardiac Function
Normal beating of the human heart produces a distinct and repeating pattern of
electrical activity measurable throughout the body for any two sample points that cross
the chest.c The typical electrocardiogram signal is shown in Figure 2.
p 1
s
Figure 2. Typical EKG Signal for a Normal Heartbeat. Portions of the waveform are labeled P, Q,
R, s, and T.
Detection of the R-wave allows measurement of frequency, time,d and amplitude. For
continuous monitoring, heart rate measurements will vary considerably and in a non-
linear fashion; therefore, the measurement of inter-beat-interval (IBI), the time
between R peaks, is more normally distributed in the absence of signal, reducing noise
in the measurement. 8 Averaging the heart rate over minutes of task performance and
comparing to baseline yields a reliable estimate of increased metabolic function. 9 An
additional measure is the heart rate variability (HRV), calculated by dividing the
standard deviation of IBI by an average value of IBI within a sample period. Additional
measurements can be made by decomposing the spectra of HRV into low, mid, and
' In fact, a typical introductory physics course for life science students will include a laboratory experiment where
the heart rhythm is measured between electrodes located on the right wrist and left ankle.
d This time measurement is properly a phase measurement, with the phase relative to some reference event.
5
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.