A first implementation of an advanced 3d interface to control and supervise uav (uninhabited aerial vehicles) missions

  • Authors:

  • Francesca De Crescenzio;Giovanni Miranda;Franco Persiani;Tiziano Bombardi

  • Affiliations:

  • -;-;-;Virtual Reality and Simulation, Laboratory II Faculty of Engineering, University of Bologna, 47100 Forlí, Italy

  • Venue:
  • Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Recent analyses on the uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV) accidents revealed that several kinds of human-system control problems occur in current UAV missions. Therefore, a design of the man--machine interface that allows for an efficient and effective interaction between the operator and the remote vehicle becomes one of the challenges in the development of more reliable UAVs. This paper presents a first implementation of an advanced interface for UAV ground control station based on a touch screen, a 3D virtual display, and an audio feedback message generator. The touch screen is used to send high level commands to the vehicle, the 3D virtual display provides a stereoscopic and augmented visualization of the complex scenario in which the vehicle operates, and the audio feedback message generator informs the operator about any change in operational scenario. The hardware/software architecture of the interface also includes a planning algorithm and a generic vehicle model. The interface has been tested by simulating several UAV missions. The results have shown that the interface requires an adequate level of workload to command the vehicle and allows the operator to build a good level of awareness of the state of the vehicle under his or her control, as well as of the environment in which it operates.