UAS Crew Operator Requirements

In the not so distant future, autonomy and automation will synonomous with commercial transport aviation.  Until then, the chasm that needs to be bridged is the proliferation of unmanned aircraft operations.  This is seemingly a natural progression to the end-state of full autonomous aircrafts but it is not without its hurdles.  The main drivers to facilitate this transition is the global shortage of aircraft pilots and its impact on the ever increasingly demand on international travel.  As such the need to recruit, train and operate with the correct crew for unmanned operations is a vital topic of discussion.




Unmanned aircraft operators are employed in a remote located away from the actual aircraft asset within a ground control station. With the high costs of training traditional pilots coupled with the intuition of the video game millenial generation, I opine that it makes sense to not have a prior manned aircraft flight hours as a pre-requisite in order to become an UAS operator.  Often you hear that UAS operators do not experience the same tactile feedback or noise reverberations as they would within a traditional aircraft.  Well, imagine an untainted UAS candidate operator who would bring their own unbiased intuition to operate within a GCS.  Further, with GCS design interfaces, they are more and more akin to that of video game controller designs.  The hand eye coordination, multi-tasking and multiple interface monitoring are all basically inherent with this new generation of aspiring UAS operators.




The basic requirement to become a UAS operator should come down to a screening process for the potential to handle high work load in stressful situations, absord and intepret multiple sources of information, proficient hand-eye coordination and also understanding the fundamentals of flight dynamics and operations.  They should also be mandated time within a simulator for line of operational simulation scenarios.  This would help train on CRM related scenarios to foster efficient and decisive communications within the GCS. In terms of a medical requirement, a lower threshold would attract a much wider talent pool, as an example, if your body is unable to sustain high gravitational pulls past 3Gs, it would not be a problem given the high performance aircraft flight effects have no impact to the UAS operator within the GCS.


Cheers,

Week 7 - UAS Mishaps and Accidents

Week 7: UAS Mishaps and Accidents

After reviewing this week’s readings and discussing the forum postings provided by our classmates, I notice that the root cause of the sUAS mishaps are due to the operators not taking their role seriously as an aircraft pilot.  The FAA representatives in their presentations repeat this statement time and time again that since the FAA has granted the applicants as licensed operators, that they are treated and should behalf as accredited pilots – much the same as your traditional pilots.  This means that RPAS operators whether small or large, commercial or recreational, should follow their training to adhered to checklists and minimize risk whenever possible.  This is done via stringent processes such as reviewing NOTAMs, conducting pre-mission planning to confirm favourable weather conditions, knowing the lay of the land, alternate LZs and familiarizing themselves with emergency procedures.  There should also be pre-flight walkarounds or inspections conducted as part of each sUAS mission.  In the investigative reports or unofficial findings, there is never any mention of these conventional risk mitigation activities.  It seems as though since technology has evolved to such an easily accessible flight-vehicle, that the responsibilities of the remote pilot has also diverged from their traditional precautionary responsibilities.

It may not be a far stretch to recommend that the FAA in the near future institute random spot-checks or audits to ensure that all risk mitigation activities are considered to minimize UAS mishaps and accident rates.  This will at least increase the vigilance from a human factors perspective to ensure all remote PICs are cognizant of the ramifications should they become relaxed in their approach to risk factors for their sUAS missions.

UAS and Manned Aircraft Autonomy

Assignment 6.5 - UAS and Manned Aircraft Autonomy

Generally speaking there are three main levels of autonomy.  They are your low level, mid-level and high level classes.  The low level rarely involves the system as the human in the loop possesses the overall situational awareness and control.  This would be akin to a UAS that is flown as a FPV mode for hobbyist racers.  The second level is the medium level of autonomy which sees about 50% of the computer providing the input and flight control over the UAS.  This would be akin to a small UAS that provides features such as autopilot so that it lowers workload and provides easy maneuverability for the human operator to fly as they want (ie. if altitude is locked, then the operator is able to just control yaw and turns rather than pitch).  The last level is high autonomy which means that the human interface is very little while the computer itself is providing almost all of the control and decision making.  A pre-programmed flight plan for a large UAV with dedicated GCS would be an illustration of this example.  All flight destinations would be pre-programmed and automatically executed as waypoint navigation.  The only time that the human would be involved is if it explicitly interrupted the system to gain control over the flight controls.

In my opinion the main difference that needs to be considered on the subject of automation for manned operations versus unmanned operations is the ability to adaptively sustain and maintenance situational awareness of the mission.  For manned aircraft operations, you have a crew with you that will provide you constant feedback and input and query to all arrive at the same type of information and decision.  For an unmanned operation, assuming you are the only person in the loop operating the device, then you are left to your own senses when it comes to the mission at hand.  You do not have the luxury to call upon your first officer to confirm your suspicions on navigation issues or troubleshooting in flight emergencies.  This is where I believe automation will help complement the unmanned operator by providing intelligence via updates and adaptive feedback.  Even something as simple as a pre-flight walkaround check may substantially different as in manned operations you have at least 2 or even 3 sets of eyes to ensure that the aircraft is airworthy.  Whereas in unmanned operations, you may only have 1 set of eyes and the rest will rely on automated indications to ensure all systems are sound for operation.  In a remote setting, the launch and recovery team would provide this checkout where as the remotely controlled GCS operator will not even have the opportunity to conduct such a check.  Automation is what will be able to fill this void and enable some level of situational awareness for the remote unmanned operator.

I believe that the current industry under utilizes automation. Looking at the example of the NASA and FAA initiatives for NextGen, we are only seeing the tip of what is to come.  With innovations such as ADS-B and digital datalinks to provide real-time information and flight data, it will help manned and unmanned aircraft operations integrate as the overall demand for air aviation increases over the next few years.  With more precise navigational information, more aircrafts will be able to fly in a denser grid while maintaining safety buffer distances and proper sense and avoid protocols.  Communications among traffic controllers, pilots and unmanned operators will be facilitated via datalinks that help transcend archaic voice communications.  The next few years of air transport will be completely transformed with the migration of these technologies and levels of automation that will only help evolve our status quo achievements!

Reference

Obringer, L. (2017, August 6). NASA. Retrieved from Autonomous System: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/autonomous-systems#adsb