The Use of Simulation to Train Complex Unmanned Aircraft Systems Command and Control Tasks

Abstract

The National Airspace System (NAS) is undergoing a significant process of evolutionary change to maintain stride with new aircraft technologies and the increased traffic demands projected to occur by the year 2025. The expansion and modernization of the NAS requires new methods to manage and monitor the increased air traffic demands, the impact on airport capacity, increased workload associated with air traffic controllers, and the potential for full-scale integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Most often, the term unmanned aircraft is misunderstood. There is the notion the human operator is removed from the flight control loop. In fact, the human operator is a critical element albeit the operator and air vehicle are not co-located. The operation of UAS imposes many challenges including: deprivation of sensory cueing, latency in command and response loops, lag in communications and difficulty in attaining adequate situational awareness of the flight environment. Therefore, operator selection and training is considered a complex issue as an elevated level of variability exists with UAS operations, interface, and vehicle design. This presents significant discord as to how UAS operators should be trained. Further, training in the live task environment promotes significant safety concerns. Therefore, the use of high fidelity simulators may offer significant training benefits. The ability to simulate real world experiences and expose learners to complexities could serve as a mechanism to stimulate underlying psychological processes required for incremental knowledge construction and psychomotor skill acquisition.

Authors

• Haritos, Tom Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Hale, Jon Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Keywords

• UAS
• Education
• Training