Design and evaluation of UAV ground control station by considering human factors standards and guidelines

The majority of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) accidents can be directly related to human error. For this reason, standards and guidelines focusing on human factors have been published by various organizations such as Transport Canada, FAA, EASA, NASA and military agencies. The objective of this thesis is to present a methodology for designing a Ground Control Station (GCS) using available standards and guidelines for human factors. During the design process, a detailed analysis was performed using human factors methods to ensure all requirements were met; each phase of the design follows the guidelines presented in the compiled human factors standards and guidelines. The GCS interface was developed using advanced programming techniques and commercial off-the-shelf software. Moreover, an operator workload evaluation was carried out using NASA task load index for validation of design methodology. It was found that the applied methodology not only improved the pilot workload, but also ensured that all user and stakeholders’ requirements are met.