Environmental Factors Affecting Situation Awareness in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

As mini-UAVs become more capable and reliable, it is important to start looking at the factors differentiating them from other classes of unmanned vehicles. One such factor is the physical proximity of operators to the vehicle during deployment. Operators of these UAVs are often within sight of their vehicle, and share many environmental cues such as visual landmarks. However, operating in the field also entails additional environmental stresses, such as less optimal use of computer equipment, variations in weather, and the physical demands of the terrain. In this paper, a pilot study is conducted to determine if any of these factors significantly impact situation awareness, by comparing operator performance in a visual identification task in a live field test with operators performing an identical task in a lab environment. Metric results suggest that performance is similar across the two conditions, but qualitative responses from participants suggest that the underlying strategies employed differ in the two conditions.