Adaptive Levels of Automation for UAV Supervisory Control

OR Concepts Applied (ORCA) is currently involved in a Phase I SBIR effort for AFRL/HECI entitled Adaptive Levels of Autonomy (ALOA) for UAV Supervisory Control. In Phase II, ORCA will build on our Phase I successes, which are a direct result of years of experience designing mission planning and LO autorouting software tools. In Phase I, ORCA devised the ALOA architecture and defined multiple levels of autonomy (LOA) for four operator tasks: allocation, route planning, imagery analysis, and weapon control. To demonstrate the architecture and the implementation of the LOA, we designed a prototype multi-UAV control station emulator (MCSE) test bed, which utilizes ORCA-developed mission planning software components. ORCA’s extensive internal IR&D has produced state-of-the-art mission planning tools that allow fully autonomous route planning and allocation. Experience from the J-UCAS effort and other UAV programs gives us first hand knowledge of the tools and decision aids operators need for manual planning. This experience allows us to implement the two autonomy extremes for route planning and allocation: manual and fully autonomous. We successfully implemented intermediate LOA in Phase I using aspects of manual and autonomous planning. In Phase II, we will mature the ALOA architecture and finalize the MCSE test-bed design.