An evaluation of conflict resolution display formats in detect and avoid (DAA) tasks in unmanned aerial systems
An investigation was undertaken to evaluate three different display presentation types of the Conflict Prediction Display System (CPDS). The CPDS application is designed to provide operators with readily actionable Level 3 SA (Endsley, 1995a). The different display configurations were designed to evaluate the effects of information level and display format on pilot performance in order to inform future design decisions. A secondary objective was to utilize archival data to identify differences in workload and performance between integrated and standalone displays. Subject perception and objective performance data were collected from 10 participants who performed two detect-and-avoid tasks using a simulated ground control station (GCS). Each participant completed a 38-minute trial with each of the display configurations followed by a questionnaire. Several significant differences were identified in both objective performance and subjective perception between CPDS display configuration and between standalone and integrated displays. Overall, operators were significantly faster at responding to alerts on 3 of 5 performance metrics when conflict probes were used to display self-separation and collision avoidance information. In addition, operators preferred the integration of conflict probes when displaying surrounding traffic; however there was no clear preference regarding whether or not the probes display self-separation information. Standalone versus integrated comparisons indicated operators were significantly faster on all performance metrics when using an integrated display format. Given the applied nature of the research it is important to go beyond just the statistical comparisons and look at the real-world implications of the data. The practical implications of the differences in display configurations are discussed in the framework of flight management in the national airspace (NAS).
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