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White Paper: Evaluating a UAV GCS

White Paper: Evaluating a UAV GCS

The research coming from Ryerson's Department of Aerospace Engineering, MIMS Laboratory focuses specifically on the design and evaluation of the ergonomics of a Ground Control Station (GCS).

A white paper from Ryerson University was published in December 2017 that evaluates UAV ground control stations (GCS).

The research coming from Ryerson's Department of Aerospace Engineering, MIMS Laboratory focuses specifically on the design and evaluation of the ergonomics of a GCS. The research, design, and evaluation was conducted using the Presagis UAV CRAFT configurable simulator.

White Paper Description: A comprehensive set of human factors guidelines and standards regarding unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) ground control station (GCS) design have been published by numerous standard organizations such as FAA, NASA and military agencies. However, designers of GCS have found it difficult integrating all these standards into their design due to the difficulty in locating the specific document applicable to their work. As a result, most GCS designer engineers only focus on factors such as past design trend and pilot workload evaluation results. In addition to this, unlike conventional aircraft cockpit designers, the GCS designers do not necessarily have to follow a specific set of rules in terms of concept and technology to use; some organizations have even started exploring building their control stations using virtual reality and augmented reality devices such as the Oculus rift, Microsoft Hololens etc. These flexibilities and freedom are the main reason behind the recent exponential growth of the GCS design. However, they also pose huge challenge in terms of integrating the human factors standards.