Analysis of Human Errors in Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems Used During Hurricane Ian

Abstract

This report documents 51 instances of human error for small uncrewed aerial system (sUAS) for 34 missions flown under the direction of the State of Florida UAS Task Force 1 at Hurricane Ian from 9/29/2022 to 10/2/2022. The current state of human failure analysis for small UAS has been directed at aviation safety, rather than overall mission success. This work focuses on mission success, which includes data product delivery. Using an expansion of an existing failure taxonomy for disaster robotics, the data suggests that human error was not directly responsible any failures of the physical platform, but was the source of four failures to complete missions (terminal failures) and delays in 27 missions in data product delivery (non-terminal failures). Human error occurred in all but three missions. Procedural errors were occurred approximately twice as often as skill-based errors, and most frequently occurred during the Initiation and Termination phases of the mission, not the Execution phase. The documentation and preliminary analysis contributes to robotics and HRI research in interfaces, human error, training, and procedures for small UAS in any domain. The analysis is also expected to have societal impact as it alerts emergency management leadership and UAS pilots to tendencies towards errors during disasters.