Development and evaluation of level 3 situation awareness support functions for a UAV operator station

In previous research into UAV operator stations, the concept of integrated data presentation has been used to reduce the effort required to obtain and maintain level 2 situation awareness. With the resulting prototype, obtaining adequate level 3 situation awareness can still generate considerable workload. When using real-time extrapolation/ prediction to provide information regarding the ability to meet future time constraints, maintain separation and prevent threat incursions as a function of changes to the plan, the operator is relieved of many of the extrapolation tasks, and level 3 situation awareness can be achieved at a lower workload. This provides the possibility for more effective decision making in time-critical situations. To support the requirements definition of a future UAV operator station, the existing research prototype has been extended with functionality specifically intended to support level 3 situation awareness. This paper discusses the design rationale behind the functionality in more detail, provides an overview of the rating criteria and the rating method and presents the results from an evaluation by 31 subject matter experts.