Ho G. et al. Human Factors Issues When Operating Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

Ho G., Pavlovic N.J., Arrabito R., Abdalla R. — Defence R&D Canada, DRDC Toronto, March 2011. — 71 p.There has been a great deal of human factors research on unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in large part due to a high number of operator related mishaps. However, there is very little research examining the unique human factors problems associated with unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). The lack of research is surprising as there are frequent anecdotal accounts of remotely operated vehicle (ROV) entanglement, collisions, and failures. In addition, militaries are now using UUVs for search and rescue and mine countermeasure (MCM) operations and in the future, UUVs will take on critical roles in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and even time critical strike operations. In this paper, it is argued that the underwater environment presents unique challenges to operating UUVs that are different from the challenges of UGV and UAV systems. Several common human factors problems are discussed when using UUVs, including the loss of sensory cues and spatial awareness, the control of the remote vehicle, problems with situation awareness (SA) and workload, problems with trust in automation, and challenges with human robot communication. In each case, these issues are discussed with respect to underwater operations.