Specification and evaluation of the functional requirements of an UAV crew trainer [Specificatie en evaluatie van de functionele eisen van een UAV trainer]

To investigate the possibilities for application of low-cost simulators within military training courses, the research project called ELSTAR (European Low-cost Simulation technology for the ARmed forces) is carried out under the contract of the Ministries of Defence of the five participating countries of Research Technology Project (RTP) 11.8, viz. Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, and The Netherlands. This project consists of work package 3 of the ELSTAR project, an elaborate investigation of the task- and training requirements of the selected training areas, must render more detailed descriptions of four selected training systems. The current report includes a task- and training analysis of a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) crew, which formed the basis for the functional requirements of a UAV crew trainer. In order to determine low-cost solutions for this trainer, the cost driving requirements of the system were identified. The effects of degrading these requirements on the training value of the UAV crew trainer were evaluated in a experimental study. The results of the task and training analyses show that visual information is the most important source of information for the UAV crew to perform its tasks; therefore, the focus of the functional specifications is on the image system, with its image generator, display system, and visual database. In the development of a UAV simulator, it seems that the visualthe visualseems that the visual database is the major factor in the costs. This database needs to be large and very detailed, which causes the development to be time-consuming and expensive. In the evaluation study two degraded database configurations were tested: both configurations involve the definition of a high detail target area within the database, while the surrounding area is either left out or displayed with a lower level of detail. The results show that the UAV experts evaluated both simulator configurations as having a high training value. Nevertheless, their additional remarks show that they see room for improvement.
This evaluation experiment can be seen as a first attempt to define the value of specific configuration of subsystems of the simulator for training. In a later stage of this project, training value will be determined by objective measurements against alternative training methods.