Situational Awareness - Manned vs. Unmanned

Situational Awareness - Manned vs. Unmanned

ASOG Article of the Month - June 2020

ASOG Author: Gary Micklethwaite (Head of Operators QTS Canada); Image: Wikicommons Aldo Bidini, DVIDS

One of the Core competencies of any Airborne Sensor Operator, be it flying on a manned aircraft or part of an unmanned aircrew, is "Situational Awareness." Gary Micklethwaite, with over 5000 flight hours flying in both environments, highlights what is SA and how to manage SA in these two different worlds.

In my over thirty-year aviation career where I sat in the back of or operated equipment of both unmanned and manned aircraft, I have found that the development and implementation of Situational Awareness (SA) are very different in both of these types of platforms.
First of all, it may be worthwhile to look at the textbook definition of SA:

"The perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning and the projection of their status in the near future." 1

Let's look at this in three stages

Stage 1: The perception of information from the environment within a volume of time and space

It goes without saying that the environment between manned and unmanned aircraft is completely different. Movement, odors, G forces, temperature differences, and visual cues all are different in each environment. We get a lot of information from the tactile senses about how our aircraft is operating. We can feel altitude changes and turns. We know instinctively what the aircraft is doing around us, and we can "perceive the information from the environment" and apply it to our decision-making process. From this input, we can determine a bunch of things:

1. The spatial relationship between the aircraft and points on the earth
2. The relationship between our aircraft and other aircraft
3. The relationship between our aircraft and terrain
4. The relationship between our aircraft and targets
5. The weather around the aircraft
6. The health and status of the aircraft
7. Threats to the aircraft

This is not to say that we can't determine these things in unmanned flight also, but the way we determine them is very different when it comes to developing SA. Our tactile senses of touch and smell still work, but the sensation does not necessarily mean that what we are feeling and smelling in any way equates to what the aircraft is actually doing. Even our sense of hearing gives us different clues to what's going on in the aircraft as opposed to what's going on in the GCS.

So how do we actually know what's going on out there while we are flying? We rely pretty much solely on sight to receive information, and we rely on the Air Vehicle to tell us that information. In essence, the Air Vehicle has its own levels of SA. One difficulty of receiving this information is limited or inaccurate unmanned vehicle sensing capabilities, particularly when compared to a humans' rich sensing capabilities. Couple these factors with the fact that these sensors tend to provide an output that is often not presented in a human-friendly format, thus placing a high cognitive demand on the human. This can lead to cognitive overload and a loss of the human side of SA in the Human/Machine interface.

My personal opinion is that this is why some regulatory organizations such as the FAA or Transport Canada in my case, are placing restrictions of "visual line of sight operations only" on entry-level or smaller UAVs in order to give operators an extra level of SA that makes up for the lack of automation on the Air Vehicle.

So in unmanned operation, we have to rely on the machines having a rudimentary level of SA to make up for our lack of sensory input. As UA systems become more intricate, the level of SA that is built into the machine may outweigh the level of SA required to operate it.

Stage 2- - The comprehension of the perceived information

We comprehend information in different ways. We can have that seat of the pants feeling when we are flying in a manned aircraft. We can see horizon changes for turns and altitude, we can feel the aircraft around us and perceive that information in a completely different way than if we are is a stationary GCS. It is difficult to understand how UAV pilots mentally processed 3D spatial awareness relationships, including predicting where the aircraft would be flying in the next few minutes from the little amount of Spatial SA that they have. Still, they can fly and do operate safely, which would indicate that either they are developing their SA from other inputs OR the machine is providing SA to the pilot.

So basically SA means knowing what's going on around you, and if that's a correct definition, how do we perceive SA in an environment where the operator may not even be co-located with the air vehicle (i.e., remote/split operations) or where the operator may not feel the same sense of self-preservation flying unmanned as opposed to manned aircraft. Do unmanned operators even think about the vulnerability factor of their aircraft? How does an operator maintain his SA when they are flying a mission in the morning and taking little Johnny to soccer practice in the afternoon?

Firstly, a lot of training has to go into making an unmanned operator and (again, my personal opinion) is that it's easier to train an unmanned operator from square one than it is to convert a manned aircraft pilot into an unmanned AV operator. Sure, not to give him or her the wherewithal to actually fly, but you have to mentally switch the way an unmanned operator thinks as opposed to a manned operator. It's the way that we think as unmanned operators, which leads us into the third stage of having SA.

Stage 3- The projection of their status in the near future

So we gather all of this information over a period of time and devise a plan on how to put that information into practice. Some of that information is gathered by the human operator and some of it is presented by the unmanned vehicle itself.

I think that the information presented by the Air Vehicle is important for one very good reason. It's digital. It's a one or a zero, and there is no grey area. The vehicle tells us exactly what is going on with itself, and it's up to us to interpret the information. Yes, we have all seen instances where the information presented to us turned out to be false in the end, but at that time, this is what the AV is "feeling" for lack of a better word.

Recently we were doing flight testing on an Air Vehicle when there was a warning of a high EGT. We carried out the checklist for high EGT and recovered the AV without incident. The Post-flight analysis showed that a wire on the EGT sensor has broken, and the sensor did what it was supposed to do, which was shown a high temp reading. So, in essence, there was no real EGT overtemp, but the AV didn't know that, and its built-in safety sensing did what it was supposed to do. It gave us a warning. The AV itself projected its status in the near future, and we acted upon it.

Loss of SA

There's a lot of material you can read about what SA is and how we can lose it. Perhaps there's not so much on regaining it, but aviation might be unique in the sense that once we identify loss of SA, there are some things we can do to help us regain it.2 

Once we realize we've lost some portion of our SA, we need to identify the reason we lost it in the first place. Distraction, fatigue, and inattention are likely causes, and each has obvious remedies. Whatever the reason, it seems useful to focus on the things we don't know about the flight: How much fuel do we have remaining? What's the ETA? How's the destination weather holding up? If I had to land right now, where would it be? These always are important things to know and form a foundation of good SA in the cockpit, and this doesn't matter if you are in a manned or unmanned aircraft. Focusing on these questions and their answers is a pretty good place to start regaining your SA.3 

In addition to being a critical component of aircraft operation, situational awareness is fundamental to risk management. Pilots cannot assess or mitigate risk without a clear understanding of their situation, and this works for both manned and unmanned operations.

Improving Situational Awareness

No one has perfect situational awareness—there's always some aspect of a complicated task or operation we forget. Consider these recommendations on ways to improve your SA:5

Predict the Future

Think ahead of the airplane. Where will it be in five minutes? Ten? What likely will happen when it reaches decision altitude on the approach you're about to fly?6 

Identify Threats

Monitor, detect and recognize the events and factors that pose a risk to your flight. Once you react to them, how will they respond?7 

Trust Your Gut

If something tells you things are not right, maybe things are not right. Be suspicious and verify your perceptions, then respond.8 

Minimize Task Overload

Trying to configure the airplane for an approach as you cope with bad weather and a failed landing gear position indicator is a recipe for failure. Do one thing at a time, and if you are flying unmanned, don't become too reliant on automation. You're still the pilot, and you're still in control.9 

 

 

References & Sources:

1. Wikipedia, Situational Awareness, Endsley, 1995b, p. 36

2 thru 9. A Bartlett, Situational Awareness, Aviation Safety Magazine, December 2019

 

 

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