SA-Tracer: A tool for assessment of UAV swarm operator SA during mission execution

Abstract

Maintenance of Situation Awareness (SA) during supervision of a swarm of highly autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is a complex and visually demanding process. A solution for supporting UAV operators are Intelligent SA-Adaptive Interfaces (ISAAI), which dynamically adapt to the individual SA needs of operators. However, the successful deployment of ISAAIs depends on a suitable tool for assessing operator SA during mission execution. In this paper we present the tool SA-Tracer. SA-Tracer implements a formal situation model and analyses the scanning behaviour of UAV swarm operators in order to infer and assess SA on a formal basis. We present results of a first experiment performed in order to evaluate the suitability of SA-Tracer for the intended context of use and the validity of SA assessments produced by the tool.