Abstract— Over the past several decades, the military, government and commercial industries have begun to realize the potential benefits that Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) technologies stand to deliver. As a result, the demand for medium to high-altitude RPA operations, especially within the US Air Force, continues to grow. However, the assets and requisite resources to support those operations are far from unlimited and struggle to keep pace. This situation has inevitably led innovators to seek out RPA force-multiplying efficiencies to assist in bridging the resource/demand gap. One such consideration is simultaneous control of multiple aircraft by a single pilot, or Multi Aircraft Control (MAC). Past research has identified several challenges to MAC, to include dynamic and emergency task saturation, communications interruptions, and effective transfer of operational situation awareness (SA) from a losing crew to a gaining crew – called “change-over”. This (poster) paper describes the cognitive tasks, modalities, and transfer mechanisms to best achieve operational Situation Awareness (SA) within RPA operations, focusing on crew change-over. Using information from a Cognitive Task Analysis, tools, tactics and protocols to expedite and improve the change-over process will be identified and analyzed. Index Terms— Man machine systems, Human factors, Cognitive informatics, Cognitive Task Analysis, Situation Awareness I. INTRODUCTION HE application of modern semi-autonomous Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) and the long duration flight they have enabled has improved battle space Situation Awareness (SA) dramatically. This improvement in SA has been achieved with a relatively inexpensive and expendable platform. As such Department of Defense (DoD) leaders see the technology as a strategic solution to the omnipresent requirement to find Poster presentation paper received November 14, 2011. This work was supported in part by the Aeronautical System Center and711 th Human Performance Wing. The authors are with the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. 45433 USA (correspondence should be addressed to John P. Machuca, phone: 937-255-3636 x7123; fax: 937-255- 4981; e-mail: john.machuca@us.af.mil or john.machuca@afit.edu). new ways to do far more with far less. Battlefield commanders relish the thought of persistent and detailed real-time knowledge of activities on the battlefield while strategically deploying limited ground resources. Today’s front-line warrior yearns for the substantial tactical advantages of more timely and effective close air support (CAS) from their RPA escorts. At all levels, RPA technologies have become imperative to modern missions, and there is little doubt that the robotic extension of the human warfighter has changed the way battles are waged and won. Of course, to perpetually further the state of a technological art, significant resources must be expended. In today’s fiscal reality, this simply is not feasible. And so the question within the DoD becomes how do we maximize the utility of our current RPA capabilities, without expending large quantities of already very limited resources? To answer this question, it is important to consider that RPAs are part of a complex system-of-systems. The system has many components including one or more air vehicles, ground control stations (GCS) for both primary mission control and takeoff/landing, a communications suite (including intercom, chat, radios, phones, a satellite link, etc), support equipment, intelligence, command, and operations and maintenance crews [1] which are distributed globally. Assets and resources to support operations are limited and personnel resources, particularly RPA pilots, sensor operators, and Mission Intelligence Coordinators (MICs), often prove a nontrivial constraint. This challenge has lead innovators to seek out RPA force-multiplying efficiencies to assist in bridging the resource/demand gap. Multiple Aircraft Control (MAC) is one such identified efficiency. MAC is defined as the simultaneous control of multiple aircraft, and is typically discussed from the pilot’s point of view, but applies equally to the MIC. The MAC concept of operations has been documented by the US Air Force [2] which envisions future single pilots will simultaneously control multiple RPAs. Similar plans might be called out for the remainder of the crew, including the pilot and MIC. Such a construct facilitates a flying squadron to do more with less - at least in terms of two of the mostly highly constrained resources, pilots and MICs. A Cognitive Task Analysis-based Evaluation of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Situation Awareness Transfer Mechanisms John P. Machuca, Michael E. Miller, John M. Colombi Department of Systems and Engineering Management, Air Force Institute of Technology Wright-Patterson AFB, OH. 45433 USA This material is declared a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. T 2012 IEEE International Multi-Disciplinary Conference on Cognitive Methods in Situation Awareness and Decision Support, New Orleans, LA U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright 179