Sunday, January 25, 2015

Universal Ground Control Station Human Factors Review





The Universal Ground Control Station (UGCS) is slated to be the new GCS for all U.S. Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).  It will be replacing the One System Ground Control Station (OSGCS) and is supposed to bring significant improvements.  Both of these GCSs are portable and come on the back of an LMTV (Light to Medium family of Tactical Vehicles) for mobility considerations.  While the UGCS is advertised as an improvement over the OSGCS in reality there is very little real improvement and in many critical areas it is actually a step backwards from the OSGCS.  Figure 1 shows the UGCS control stations as implemented in the UGCS simulator which is identical to the control stations in the actual GCS.

Figure 1. UGCS AO and PO control stations. (Hosler II, 2015)
 

GCS human factors issues have been an ongoing issue with Army UAS that will hopefully be fixed in the future with an institutional change of mindset.  “It appears that some military unmanned aircraft have been rushed into service, with GCS interfaces that violate established basic design principles.” (Salas & Maurino, 2010, p. 518)

Operator Controls

One of the major issues that were identified as needing to be improved on the OSGCS were the physical control inputs for the operator.  Many of the controls such as the joystick used for payload control at the Payload Operator (PO) station and for taxiing the aircraft from the Aircraft Operator (AO) station was taken directly from existing RQ-7B Shadow GCS.  This joystick was a point of contention with the Shadow GCS and it was not understood why it was used in the OSGCS.  This joystick was even more unsuitable for taxiing the 3200 lbs. aircraft and it created major safety concerns and requires the aircraft to be taxied at slower than normal speeds for safe operation.  While the new joystick in the UGCS is superficially different it is functionally the same as the OSGCS joystick with all of its inadequacies.

There are other control issues such as the layout for weapons engagement.  Instead of being easily accessible which would allow quick and efficient weapons employment the controls are spread out between both the AO and PO stations and require not only physical button presses and joystick inputs but software menu navigation and selection is also required.  This is an extremely cumbersome and unnecessarily difficult operation and it is obvious that no human factors considerations were used in the design of these GCS controls.  This problem is present in  the OSGCS and is virtually unchanged in the UGCS.

Probably the most egregious change in the UGCS is removal of the trackball control for menu navigation and replacing it with a pressure sensitive button mouse that is universally disliked.  This same mouse configuration was used on a secondary computer in the OSGCS and all the operators of the aircraft had difficulty with this input device.  This input device is highly inaccurate and will greatly slow down menu navigation and will slow operations a great deal.  This will manifest itself even more dramatically during weapons engagement scenarios with high workloads and operator stress.

While these issues are the largest control problems with the UGCS there are many more that have not been talked about here.  Overall while there are some superficial improvements the UGCS is in the most important ways a step backwards.  Figure 2 shows a close-up of the UGCS operator control station.  There will be three control stations in the UGCS, all of them identical.

Figure 2. UGCS operator control station close-up. (Hosler II, 2015)

 Visual DisplaysWhile the visual displays in the OSGCS were far from perfect they are in my opinion preferable to the new displays in the UGCS.  While the OSGCS had two flat panel displays per control station with the primary display on the right side with all critical flight information and the support display on the left with secondary display information and support programs.  Some of the problems with these displays are that they are not high definition (HD) displays and with relatively low resolution monitors the payload imagery was affected.  While HD quality payloads are available for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle putting them on the aircraft would be pointless since the display monitors are not HD capable.  The current implementation of the UGCS does not have HD capable monitors either and so continues to limit the payload capabilities which is unacceptable in today’s market with extremely cheap and readily available HD monitors.

The UGCS has one large flat panel display that all flight information and secondary programs will on at the same time.  Figure 1 shows the display layout of the UGCS.  This makes the screen much more cluttered and difficult to find critical information when needed.  There may also be a human factors standardization issue since individual operators will arrange the windows and displays to their preference instead of having one standard layout.  One feature that the operators have been asking for and which was not implemented on the UGCS displays is the ability to have touchscreen monitors.  This would allow the operator to have the option to move displays or select targets and flight paths by touching the map display or desired window.  This capability has been utilized on other UAS platforms and why it was not implemented in the UGCS is unknown. 

Conclusion and Recommendations

The UGCS is not a significant improvement over the OSGCS and in many critical factors such as the control inputs and visual displays it is in fact a step backwards.  The physical controls have not alleviated the human factors issues that the OSGCS currently has and with the menu navigation input device the UGCS is much less user friendly and efficient than the OSGCS.  While it is understandable that the Army wants to have a common GCS for its UAS to lower cost and keep a smaller logistics footprint it must be done in a manner that does not affect mission effectiveness.  One possible solution would be to go with a modular GCS such as Raytheon’s Common Ground Control Station (CGCS).

The Army needs to take human factors much more seriously in their GCS designs.  “The fundamental concept underlying HSI is the consideration of the human element in all aspects of a system’s life-cycle so as to reduce resource utilization and system costs from inefficiency while dramatically increasing system performance and productivity” (Barnhart, Hottman, Marshall, & Shappee, 2012, p. 173) More direct input from the UAS operators needs to be taken into consideration to help alleviate these problems before the system design is finalized.  We currently had a human factors session concerning our Synthetic Aperture Radar software interface and the team did an excellent job of taking operator inputs and ideas for consideration in the software design.  This same approach needs to be taken in all design elements that have human factors implications.  Hopefully the Army will continue along this path and we will see future improvements.


References


=10508871


Monday, January 12, 2015

Biography

Hello,

          My name is Daryl Hosler and I am writing this blog as part of an assignment while working towards my Master's Degree in Aeronautical Science with an emphasis on Unmanned Aerospace Systems.  I have 14 years experience in the aviation field starting as a U.S. Army Aviator flying the AH-64A/D attack helicopter with two tours in Iraq.  After getting out of the Army I started working as RQ-7B Shadow UAS instructor operator at Fort Huachuca, AZ.  I was then given the opportunity to be one the Army's first 12 MQ-1C Gray Eagle instructors.  I helped to develop the MQ-1C qualification course as well as the MQ-1C gunnery familiarization course as well as acting as the Government Flight Representative (GFR) for all Army Predator class UAS flight operations at Libby Army Airfield.  I then took a position as a Tiger Shark TUAS Mission Commander flying counter-IED SAR missions in Afghanistan for a year using the Copperhead SAR.  Upon my completion of 12 months in Afghanistan I took a position flying the Silver Fox sUAS in Tucson, AZ.  I was then offered a position with Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems to return as an MQ-1C Gray Eagle instructor once more where I am currently working.

          I am pursuing my Master's to give myself a wider range of education in aviation in general and UAS specifically with a goal of working in the emerging field of civil UAS operations in the future.  This is my fifth class in my pursuit of this degree with 7 more to complete after this class.