Posts Tagged video feed

Close Target Reconnaissance: A Field Evaluation of Dismounted Soldiers Utilizing Video Feed From an Unmanned Ground Vehicle in Patrol Missions

Oron-Gilad and Parmet (2016) in the Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making.

  • How is the decision cycle of dismounted soldiers affected by the use of a display device displaying video feed from an unmanned ground vehicle in a patrol mission?
  • Via a handheld monocular display, participants received a route map and sensor imagery from the vehicle that was ~20–50 m ahead.
  • Twenty-two male participants were divided into two groups, with or without the sensor imagery. Each participant navigated for 2 km in a MOUT training facility, while encountering civilians, moving and stationary suspects, and improvised explosive devices.
  • Boyd’s OODA loop (observe–orient–decide–act) framework was used to examine
    decisions.
  • The experimental group was slower to respond to threats and to orient. They also reported higher workload, more difficulties in allocating their attention to their environment, and more frustration.
  • The breakdown of performance metrics into the OODA loop components revealed the major difficulties in the decision-making process and highlighted the need for new roles in combat-team setups and for additional training when unmanned vehicle sensor imagery is introduced.

Practitioner Points
•• The use of a handheld monocular device for intelligence gathering of information from a UGV affected participants’ ability to detect events with their own eyes.
•• Soldiers were aware of the toll that display devices had on their operational mission, yet it continuously attracted their attention.
•• Soldiers must gain understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the unmanned vehicle and its sensor video; they should be able to control the pace of its progress.
•• Team setups, where only limited designated roles attend to the sensor video and more than one individual attends to the immediate environment, may be a better setup for utilization of the technology.

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Scalable interfaces for dismounted soldiers–displaying multiple video feed sources simultaneously

  • One way to enhance soldiers’ orientation and SA is by adding various sources of information (including feeds from unmanned systems) to generate a broader perspective of the environment.

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This is a demonstration of a key-hole effect, where it may be difficult to determine where in the map (left) the feed shown from the UAV is located.

  • Researchers and practitioners have recently begun to examine the use of several types of unmanned systems combined.
  • In order to do this well, it is important to minimize the visual load imposed on the soldier, a load that is obviously increasing due to multiple parallel displays.
  • Additional views can increase operator comprehension of the situation but may also cause overload and confusion. Often, too many choices, characteristics and applications may even harm the operator as much as lack of choices.

Our effort aims to examine the needs of dismounted soldiers in a multiple video feed environment (i.e., more than one source of information can be provided at a time) and to identify displays devices and interfaces that can support dismounted soldiers in such more complex intelligence gathering missions.

Combining UAV and UGV feed.

  • UAVs are meant to deliver the “larger” picture and are necessary for orientation tasks.
  • UGVs are meant to deliver a more focused and specific image.
  • Combination of the two should be advantageous when information is complex or ambiguous e.g., one may want to detect a target and then identify its features in more detail.

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This is an example of a combined display, where both UAV and UGV video feeds are shown in addition to the aerial map. Waypoints of interest are marked on the map.

Coming soon  – experimental results of attentional allocation and performance on intelligence gathering tasks in such displays.

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