Manual Versus Speech Input for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Control Station Operations

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control stations feature multiple menu pages with systems accessed by keyboard presses. Use of speech-based input may enable operators to navigate through menus and select options more quickly. This experiment examined the utility of conventional manual input versus speech input for tasks performed by operators of a UAV control station simulator at two levels of mission difficulty. Pilots performed a continuous flight/navigation control task while completing eight different data entry task types with each input modality. Results showed that speech input was significantly better than manual input in terms of task completion time, task accuracy, flight/navigation measures, and pilot ratings. Across tasks, data entry time was reduced by approximately 40% with speech input. Additional research is warranted to confirm that this head-up, hands-free control is still beneficial in operational UAV control station auditory environments and does not conflict with intercom operations and intra-crew communications.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

T. R.

(1998). The Technology of Speech-based Control. In Alternative Control Technologies: Human Factors Issues. NATO Research and Technology Organization, RTO-EN-3; pp. 2-1–2-9.

Barbato

(1998). Integrating Voice Recognition and Automatic Target Cueing to Improve Aircrew-System Collaboration for Air-to-Ground Attack. In Proceedings of the NATO Research and Technology Organization System Concepts and Integration Symposium, Ottawa, Canada, pp. 24–1–24-11.

Calhoun

G. L.

Draper

M. H.

Ruff

H. A.

Fontejon

Guilfoos

(2003). Evaluation of tactile alerts for control station operation. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 47^th Annual Meeting..

Wierwille

Casali

(1983). A validated rating scale for global mental workload measurement applications. Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 27^th Annual Meeting, 129–133.

Williamson

D. T.

Barry

T. P.

Liggett

K. K.

(1996). Flight Test Results of ITT VRS-1290 in NASA OV-10. Proceedings of the 15^th Annual International Voice Technologies Applications Conference AVIOS 1996, American Voice Input/Output Society, San Jose, CA, 335–345.

Williamson

D. T.

Barry

T. P.

(2000). The design and evaluation of a speech interface for generation of Air Tasking Orders. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 44^th Annual Meeting, 750–753.