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.

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p. 5 …time was necessary. The cognitive limitation of a human astronaut and his ability to perform the…
p. 6 …the fleet could be economically accomplished if only one remote pilot on station at a time…
p. 7 …At times of low demand the operator exerts effort to maintain vigilance (Al) until demand is…
p. 8 …The final approach is to record real-time physiological measures, with the assumption that increased workload…
p. 9 …time to an event stimulus is a typical real-time measure of speed. Outside the laboratory…
p. 10 …Detection of the R-wave allows measurement of frequency, time,d and amplitude. For continuous monitoring…
p. 11 …ET data will include position of a fixation and the time of each eye movement (or…
p. 12 …The difficulty lies in measurement time - typical fast assays of salivary cortisol still require about 15…
p. 13 …The FAA rebuilt the force to pre-strike levels during the rest of the 1980s. This…
p. 14 …existed in times immediately after peaks in workload. The second part of the study examined whether…
p. 16 …during the 8-hour workday, night time after work. Additionally, controllers completed the State- Trait Anxiety…
p. 18 …The authors conclude that psychophysiological data can be used to accurately measure workload in real-time…
p. 19 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'1"1!11'- l!ll"l"ll!lllile lal!i! i;nn,~r The more…
p. 20 …As shown multiple times in the preceding section, single-task processing time and intensity (difficulty or…
p. 21 …Time pressure Time ~ Figure 5. Information Processing Model for a Human Operator. 37 In modeling the…
p. 22 …of the time, performance decreased due to decreased vigilance in confirming alarms properly on the ATC…
p. 23 …Results showed that the autoalert augmentation dramatically decreased the time to locate system failures, as well…
p. 25 …the time between the need for attention and the beginning of the next interaction time is…
p. 26 UNCLASSIFIED//509 OFFHiIJl1k W81!! 8HLY interfaces reduces the maximum number of aircraft controllable to seven. 51…
p. 27 …Whether it is the handwritten blocks for the ATCs, the stored instructions for the Dixon study…
p. 28 …We have shown the research progress in both areas, and the cognitive limits on the number…
p. 31 …A real-time traffic control scheme of multiple AGV systems for collision free minimum time motion…

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Chapter 6: Conclusions
There is a lack of research in the area of cognitive limits on the number of spacecraft
one pilot could control given any mission scenario. Two models for examining what are
similar activities are air traffic control and remote piloting of multiple unmanned
vehicles. We have shown the research progress in both areas, and the cognitive limits
on the number of craft that can be simultaneously controlled are 16 for simple
destination selection, 7 for moderately complex piloting and/or mission task completion,
and 4 for complex heterogeneous craft. Future research may increase the automation
component of aircraft and mission control, but there is no evidence to date that a
complete mental picture can be maintained, even with external working memory
augmentation, for more than about 16 objects at one time.
We have additionally shown that physiological variables can be objectively employed to
indicate overload. Nominal success has been achieved in classifying physiological states
near high workload and thus able to predict and thus possibly prevent overload. We
expect this classification will be achieved with near perfect accuracy within five years of
specific studies being commenced.
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UNCLASSIFIED//FQA: QFFICIOP 1!55 0111 ¥

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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.