Concurrent Performance of Military and Robotics Tasks and Effects of Cueing in a Simulated Multi-Tasking Environment

Abstract

We simulated a military mounted crewstation environment and conducted two experiments to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator. The robotics tasks involved managing a semi-autonomous ground robot or teleoperating a ground robot to conduct reconnaissance tasks. We also evaluated whether aided target recognition (AiTR) capabilities (delivered either through tactile or tactile + visual cueing) for the gunnery task might benefit the concurrent robotics and communication tasks. Results showed that participants' gunnery task performance degraded significantly when they had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate an unmanned ground vehicle compared to the gunnery-single task condition. When there was AiTR to assist them with their gunnery task, operators' concurrent performance of robotics and communication tasks improved significantly. However, there was a tendency for participants to over-rely on automation when task load was heavy, and performance degradations were observed in instances where automation failed to be entirely reliable. Participants' spatial ability was found to be a reliable predictor of robotics task performance, although the performance gap between those with higher and lower spatial ability appeared to be narrower when the AiTR was available to assist the gunnery task. Participants' perceived workload increased consistently as the concurrent task conditions became more challenging and when their gunnery task was unassisted. Individual difference factors such as spatial ability and perceived attentional control were found to correlate significantly with some of the performance measures. Implications for military personnel selection were discussed.