Unmanned Tactical Autonomous Control and Collaboration (UTACC) Human Machine Communication and Situational Awareness Development

The Unmanned Tactical Autonomous Control and Collaboration UTACC system seeks to integrate Marines and machine in a way that does not add to the cognitive load of warfighters. How do machines communicate with humans and vice versa when they are interdependent teammates, rather than following a framework of human operating the robot Key to this capability, is the capacity to incorporate observability, predictability and directability into the interface designs. Previous research studied this question from a context of a Marine fireteam that had a robot as one of its members. Choosing the right type of interface to facilitate communications between members of a fireteam be they human or machine is essential to their ability to actually function as a team and trust one another. But those communications occur in the immediate proximity of the teammates. What changes when you seek to expand this concept beyond a small unit Three essential focus areas are included in this thesis. First, what is the essential information required to maintain situational awareness between a UTACC fireteam and higher echelons of military units. In other words, this is the what of information being exchanged. Secondly, what are the interface design principles that will hold true no matter what type of information is being exchanged Finally, this thesis presents proposed methods to evaluate these principles and the specific information exchange requirements.