Autonomous Flight Testbed (AFT): Designing a Flight Simulation System to Explore Future Human-Machine Teaming Concepts

EasyChair Preprint no. 2891

Abstract

Autonomous flight is becoming more viable. The United States Air Force (USAF) is aiming to leverage autonomous capabilities, such as the QF-16, to team with human pilots in the battlefield. However, there is very little research to assess how autonomous capabilities might integrate with human pilots in real-world warfighting scenarios. Given this limitation, we have designed and developed the Autonomous Flight Testbed (AFT) to explore human-autonomy teaming in a realistic flight simulator. The AFT explores novel concepts of operations for human-piloted F-35 flight with simulated autonomous F-16s. The AFT system, including the architecture, scenarios, and measurement capabilities, are described below. As a proof of concept, we evaluate trust, workload, and situation awareness in scenarios designed with the help of subject matter experts. The results of the study will be reported and discussed along with the AFT as a tool to help the USAF develop capabilities for future autonomous teaming.

Keyphrases: flight simulation, Human-autonomy Teams, Systems Modeling

@Booklet{EasyChair:2891,
  author = {Ryan Holec and Makenzie Hockensmith and Jessica Broll and Caroline Wittich and Bianca Donadio and Ewart de Visser and Chad Tossell},
  title = {Autonomous Flight Testbed (AFT): Designing a Flight Simulation System to Explore Future Human-Machine Teaming Concepts},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 2891},

  year = {EasyChair, 2020}}