An Ecological Approach to the Supervisory Control of UAV Swarms

This research employs ecological interface design to improve the human machine interface of an existing ground control station for the supervisory control of UAV swarms. As a case study, a general ground surveillance mission with four UAVs is envisioned. An analysis of the swarming work domain is performed to generate a reduced set of means-end relations. This analysis leads to a novel design that shows predicted coverage and range of the UAVs in the swarm. An evaluation study with 10 participants showed that the new interface successfully enables operators to control a swarm of four UAVs and mitigate problems during mission execution. The results of the evaluation study showed that operators had a better system understanding and that it promoted creative problem solving activities to scenarios that could not be solved by fixed procedures.