Operator Controlled, Reactive UAV Behaviors in Manned-Unmanned Teaming Scenarios with Selective Datalink Availability

This article discusses a way to increase controllability of an unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) when data link is not or only temporarily available, by providing user-adaptable reactive behaviors of a UAV to events, and user-adaptable constraints of how to execute a task. Manned military missions can greatly benefit from the information provided by the combined deployment with UAVs. Effective use of current unmanned systems is dependent on a continuous datalink. Various reasons can cause a temporary interruption of a datalink in military missions. An interrupted datalink prevents timely delivery of gathered information by the UAV, possibly severely decreasing mission effectiveness. The impact on mission effectiveness can be minimized, if the unmanned system continues with its task execution during the interruption of the datalink. Since an interrupted datalink makes it also impossible for the commanding pilot to issue or alter commands, a continuance of execution without a datalink has a negative impact on controllability of the automated system. We aim to increase controllability during datalink outages by allowing the pilot to define automatic behaviors, which shall be executed by the UAV if certain events occur as well as constraints defining how to execute tasks and reactions. The occurrence and time of these events is uncertain while the datalink is still available, hence a direct and explicit formulation of a reaction is impossible. The commanding pilot can define reactive behaviors and constraints separately for each task issued to a UAV. This contribution describes a functioning prove of concept implementation of necessary automation functions and an interface for user-adaptable behaviors in a full mission, Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) helicopter simulator. Automation functions have been integrated by extending an existing hierarchical task network used to issue high level commands to a UAV, the user interface has been fully integrated into a tactical command interface. Preliminary tests during testing and development of the automation functions and interface suggest the desired increase in operational capabilities and controllability by the pilot but also a rise in complexity for formulating a task. The possibility to define behaviors with reactions to events can greatly improve contingency planning capabilities and resilience towards datalink interruptions. Although this article explicitly describes military use cases, the concept of user-adaptable behaviors can contribute to a safe and effective integration of UAV into non-segregated civilian air space by enabling situation adapted reactions to system failures.