Scalable Warfighter Interface to Support a High-level Interactions with an Autonomous Cargo and Casualty Evacuation Unmanned Air System at Remote, Unp

UAVs are well suited for the resupply mission, reducing risk to human air crews and allowing more sorties (number of pilots and physical human requirements are currently limiters). Current users of a UAV systems must be trained and maintain domain specific knowledge regarding UAV operations (flight duration, waypoint selection, capabilities of the vehicle and in flight monitoring) in order to accomplish their"single mission objective"of imaging an area. This mission planning paradigm place undue burden on the warfighter and limits the number of users who can utilize the UAV resource. In order to make umanned resupply available to the average warfighter the system must move to a goal or objective oriented paradigm. For the unmanned resupply this would mean that the user should only be tasked with describing the payload needed and LZ characteristics (slope, ground conditions, obstacles, force position and strength, etc). The system (UAV and GCS) would then take care of asset selection, path planning, in flight monitoring, corrective action, ingress and egress. Partitioning of the required functionality between UAV and GCS will allow for early field insertion and migration as UAVs become more autonomous. This system will increase the effectiveness of the warfighter while reducing risk.