Manual Versus Speech Input for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Control Station Operations

摘要

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control stations feature multiple menu pages with systems accessed by keyboard presses. Use of speech-based input may enable operators to navigate through menus and select options more quickly. This experiment examined the utility of conventional manual input versus speech input for tasks performed by operators of a UAV control station simulator at two levels of mission difficulty. Pilots performed a continuous flight/navigation control task while completing eight different data entry task types with each input modality. Results showed that speech input was significantly better than manual input in terms of task completion time, task accuracy, flight/navigation measures, and pilot ratings. Across tasks, data entry time was reduced by approximately 40% with speech input. Additional research is warranted to confirm that this head-up, hands-free control is still beneficial in operational UAV control station auditory environments and does not conflict with intercom operations and intra-crew communications.