The UCAV DMT Testbed research will focus on technologies for: defining effective training strategies for UAV/UCAV operators; assessing the delta in training required for multiple vehicles; advanced displays driven from human factors design; integration of Geneva Aerospace s Variable Autonomy Control System; and integrating several UAV and UCAV Flight Model into the Testbed. Potential applications include direct linkage of UCAV Testbeds as Participants in DMT. This paper chronicles the development of the UCAV DMT Testbed from the perspective of lessons learned and details features planned to support the initial research efforts planned for 2000.
Four successful UCAV DMT demonstrations and experiments are presented from a lessons learned perspective. Starting with the initial separately developed PC-Based UCAV simulations; evolving to the merging of the simulations and initial DMT research experiments including DMTO&I testbed, I/ITSEC99 and planned AFRL Mesa UCAV DMT Demonstrations. Key testbed components included the LiteFlite Flight Simulator, JSAF and SOAR applications, and the Variable Autonomy Control System (VACS). The unique and innovative portions of this paper detail the components integration for UCAV missions and operational concepts, along with the human factors engineering on the VACS human-system interface design and LiteFlite researcher toolkit interfaces. Illustrative examples, are also included with sufficient details to support other government, industry and academic organizations participation in future UCAV DMT experiments and demonstrations.
Participating organizations include but are not limited to AFRL Mesa, SDS International, Geneva Aerospace, Eglin 46th Test Wing PRIMES, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center/Tuskegee University, Computer Science Corporation. Future participants may include Navy Pax River (MFS and Distributed Simulation Groups), AFRL Wright-Patterson and Naval Aerospace Medical Research Lab. Additional discussion includes related UCAV DMT Research topics of :
LiteFlite UCAV and Testbed Utilization of the Ordnance Server to ensure DMT Fair Fight
Innovations associated with a new Distributed Ordnance Server to insure Temporal Correlation of the
Target/Counter-Measure/Weapon Triad
An Innovative new concept of handing off UCAV Ownership from the Virtual LiteFlite Host Simulation to
the Constructive JSAF and SOAR Agents to automate tasks for the UCAV operators Results from three initial UCAV integration efforts are presented detailing DIS integration with existing DMT assets and HLA integration with planned DMT configurations I/ITSEC99, USAF Only DMTO&I Demonstration Jan2000, DMT UCAV Testbed development for AFRL/HEA and UAV 2000 Demonstration July 2000. An outline of planned research efforts that will utilize the DMT UCAV Testbed are presented along with Future Research Directions.