Air Vehicle Mission Clustering for Supervisor Workload Deconfliction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Managing the operation of autonomous passenger air vehicles in urban areas is challenging due to increased workload for human operators, leading to stress, situational awareness issues, and potential delays or mistakes, especially during critical phases like takeoff and landing, where unexpected situations may arise.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that group missions into categories based on duration and cluster them into subsets that can be concurrently performed, assigning these subsets to air vehicle supervisors to optimize workload management and reduce the likelihood of overlapping critical phases, thereby enhancing safety and efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a single human operator manages multiple autonomous air vehicles concurrently, then productivity increases, but operator workload and stress increase leading to potential errors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the set of concurrent missions into multiple subsets, where each subset is assigned to a different air vehicle supervisor. This segmentation divides the operator's attention and workload into manageable portions, allowing the operator to manage multiple missions effectively without being overwhelmed by the complexity of monitoring all missions simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces air vehicle supervisors as intermediary components between the operator and the autonomous air vehicles. These supervisors act as mediators that monitor and manage specific subsets of missions, filtering and organizing information presented to the operator. This intermediary layer reduces the cognitive load on the operator by pre-processing and structuring the data from multiple vehicles.
2Productivity
If more missions are assigned to a single operator, then productivity increases, but situational awareness decreases during critical phases
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting missions into subsets assigned to different supervisors, the system ensures that no single operator is responsible for all critical phases of all missions. Each supervisor focuses on a specific subset, maintaining detailed situational awareness for their assigned missions while contributing to overall system productivity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent organizes missions in a multi-dimensional structure where missions are grouped by duration categories and further divided into subsets. This dimensional organization allows operators to navigate and monitor missions systematically, preventing information overload by providing a structured framework for situational awareness across multiple concurrent operations.
3Productivity
If critical phases of multiple missions overlap, then productivity increases, but safety and error risk increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments concurrent missions into subsets assigned to different air vehicle supervisors. This segmentation ensures that critical phases of missions within the same subset are monitored together, allowing supervisors to identify and manage potential overlaps in critical phases. By distributing subsets across multiple supervisors, the system maintains safety through focused monitoring while enabling concurrent mission execution.
Data Source
AI summary
A method, apparatus, system, and computer program product for operating air vehicles. Missions for the air vehicles are grouped into categories based on durations of the missions. The missions within the categories are clustered into subsets of the missions that can be concurrently performed to meet a set of mission performance criteria. The subsets of the missions are assigned to a set of air vehicle supervisors.