Mixed-initiative multi-UAV mission planning by merging human and machine cognitive skills

Abstract

The Universität der Bundeswehr München is conducting research in the field of Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T). In the MUM-T scenario there is a human multi-UAV (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle) operator who is responsible for the online air mission planning and re-planning. This operator shall be supported in his work by an assisting automation in order to maximize system performance. We therefore examine multiple scientific approaches to human-automation integration and present our established Cognitive and Cooperative Automation approach as well as a novel Cognitive Skill Merging approach. The latter is based upon bringing together human and machine cognitive skills in order to cooperatively reason about and work upon the common overall mission planning task without decomposing it in advance. The combination of these approaches results in the proposal of applying mixed-initiative planning to address the above-mentioned problem. The concept of the MUM-T Mission Planner is presented and future experiments are outlined. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.