HUMAN FACTORS, ETHICS AND MORALITY

The new technology for using military Drones has brought a new role in the remote warfare.  The benefits on the use of this technology are qualitative and quantitative. Mostly on reducing cost and reducing risk of the operator live. In analyzing some human factors as moral and ethical issues related to the application of the Drones in war, we have first to define  moral as “concern of the principles of wright and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character and defining ethics as the body of moral principles or rules of conduct followed by and individual” (Webster, 1966).

Human factors as moral and ethics had played a big role in the warfare. For the war to be just I must have a right cause (America, 1947).  The use of force from a government should have consideration base in the international agreements, which includes the;

” principle of military necessity, the principle of distinction (between soldiers and civilians), the principle of proportionality, which says that the force must be proportional to the military objective to be achieved, and the principle of humanity, which proposes that military forces must avoid suffering and the unnecessary destruction of civilian property” (FREIBERGER, July 18, 2013).

 The new weapons have been develop with the propose to win wars, this is the goal where two or more adversaries engage on. Before the use of drones traditional manned aircrafts were use in the missions with high risk of loss of crew lives, POW, and loss of expensive aircrafts. The use of military UAS force is more effective and should always consider the moral principles of justice and good conduct. Therefore Ethics should be applied even during the extreme human conditions. Unfortunately war have the dirty side when the parts in conflict disconnect from this rules of conduct and abuse of force on killing civilians what is ant- ethical justified as collateral damage or unintentional deaths. As the philosopher Maquiavelo wrote; “The end justified the means” (Maquiavelo, 1982). If it is truth, it will be very hard to apply ethics and morality during the war. The use of drones has made easy, cheap and safe way to engage in to warfare. Usually the stronger opponent is the one with the more advance and powerful technology.

The governments before declare war to any country or criminal organization should consider the moral and ethical consequences the conflict could bring. Prosecutions for violate the rules of war had been seen in the international courts. The use of military drones as the use of nuclear bombs it is entirely human. Moral, ethical and conscious decisions with great responsibility should be taken in consideration before lives need to be taken. The present and future use of UAV in the military warfare is reality, new technologies as advance computer algorithms that allow the systems to have almost complete level of autonomic and intelligence for accomplishment of missions. USA as one of the pioneer country’s in the developed of the UAV technology and with the highest experience in the military use of the drones, need to set regulations with other countries that develop, use and commercialize this technology and create international legislation to control the design, manufacture, operation and applications of these powerful systems. As the anti-missiles systems were develop also anti-drones systems have to be developed for defense porpoise too, so we won’t become victims of our own inventions.

Reference

 

America, T. W. (1947). City of God in.

FREIBERGER, E. (July 18, 2013). Just War Theory and the Ethics of Drone Warfare.

Maquiavelo, A. (1982). The Prince.

Webster, N. (1966). Webster Dictionary.

                 

9.7 - Blog: Case Analysis Effectiveness Post and Blog

I have been attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, taking ASI 638 Human Factors in Unmanned Systems course. This have been my first online course, and I felt very happy to have a dedicate Professor and excellent group of classmates whom a have the opportunity to interact during the course discussions and assignments.  I have learned a lot on human factors for unmanned aircrafts.  This course has enriched my knowledge in research, analyze and develop recommendations for UAS systems and their integration into our Nacional Airspace System. There were very important discussions about issues relate to human factors as; UAS crew members fatigue, UAS Technology, and UAS regulations. There were nine weeks of hard work and interactive assignments that give me the opportunity to understand most of the UAS operational issues, analyze problems, and developing recommendations and solutions.

The case analysis as a tool was of great benefit to me on current carrier. As a quality control inspector and the safety person on the company I work for. The analysis on fatigue and boringness and switching shifts was good and help me to design new schedules at my work place. The case analysis on crew resource management is another important issue that I am considering very useful during the time I have to flight. Therefore with the idea to get into the new field of UAS business, I think that the application of the case analysis tool is going to help me when I will be looking in to any specific areas of UAS business were I will be working in the future.

The course was well organized and dynamic, peer reviews were very important. I real appreciated the ideas from my course peers. The professor continuous communication was very helpful. I will like to recommend one video chat or interactive web binary with the class and the professor.             

                 Analysis and Operational Risk Management (ORM) for SUAS ScanEagle.  

The ScanEagle is an autonomous small unmanned aerial vehicle use with appropriated technology and with high reliability. The ScanEagle can be used for military and commercial operations. It is been deployed in Iraq war since 2004. Operational risk management will be done with the objective to determine how some of the hazard issues of this ScanEagle vehicle could be mitigate. Safety is the more important issue for the public in order to this SUAV to be integrated to the NAS. Description of this system as;

“ScanEagle carries a stabilized electro-optical and/or infrared camera on a lightweight inertial stabilized turret system integrated with communications range over 62 miles (100 km), and flight endurance of 20+ hours. ScanEagle has a 10.2-foot (3.1 m) wingspan a length of 4.5 feet (1.4 m) and a mass of 44 pounds (20 kg) and can operate up to 80 knots (92 mph; 150 km/h), with an average cruising speed of 48 knots (55 mph; 89 km/h). Block D aircraft featured a higher-resolution camera, a custom-designed Mode C transponder and a new video system. A Block D aircraft, flying at Boeing’s test range in Boardman, Oregon set a type endurance record of 22 hours, 8 minutes”. For takeoff and landings This SUVA, the “The ScanEagle needs no airfield for deployment. Instead, it is launched using a pneumatic launcher. It is recovered using the “Skyhook” retrieval system, which uses a hook on the end of the wingtip to catch a rope hanging from a 30-to-50-foot (9.1 to 15 m) pole. This is made possible by high-quality differential GPS units mounted on the top of the pole and UAV. The rope is attached to a shock cord to reduce stress on the airframe imposed by the abrupt stop” (ScanEagle, 2015).

ScanEagle system is composed by four SAVs, “a ground control station, remote video terminal, the Skyhook launch and recovery system” (ScanEagle, 2015). The system have a lot improvements in radar mounted aboard, design to provide high quality real time ground imaging under bad weather and low visibility in the battle. One other improvement was infrared camera for night operations. Also using AWACS has the future to navigate over the mountains completed autonomous.

Operationally the ScanEagle is part of the USA Navy and serve in military operations in Afghanistan with a lot of missions in different parts of the word.  The manufactory Insitu reports that the Scan Eagle has fly a total of half million hours and over 56,000 missions by the year 2011.There was a reported on the year 2012 of one Scan Eagle crash in Iran but not confirmed by the UAS Navy.

            The Scan Eagle  specifications are; “ Length 1.2 meters, wingspan 3 meters, ceiling 5944 meters, height 3 meters, Max takeoff weight 20 Kg, Max Speed 148 Km/h, Range 100 Km” (ScanEagle, 2015).

UAS RISK Assessment tool for ScanEagle.

We are going to consider, some of the issues for the risk assessment, for the ScanEgle. Analysis and Evaluation is going to be review on Hardware, software, Airspace to be used, Flight, Takeoff and Landing. For this work we will be using the Risk assessment tool develop by (Barnhart, October 2011).  

See the following page for the details of Risk assessment for analysis and evaluation. 

SUAS RISK ASSESMMENT TABLE.

UAS Crew / station

“MISSION Experimental” Type	Support	Training	Payload Check
Hardware	no /I	no	no	yes/IV
Software	yes/I	yes/II	no	yes/IV
Airspace	Special used/I	Class C,E/II	Class C,E/III	Class G/IV
Flight	Day, Night/I	CMR/II	no	Night/IV
Take off	Ship Only/I	no	no	Day, Night/IV
Landing	Water Only I	no	no	Day, Night/IV
Forecast	Bad weather I	no	no	Night/IV
Miss. Alti	5944 Meters I	Class E/II	Class C/III	yes/IV

There are more human factors that could be put in consideration if we extent this hazard analysis. This system has been used for a while and it is very reliable for maritime applications, in military or private sectors and it should be considered as a reliable SUAV to be integrated in to the NAS. The development process of your ORM Assessment Tool is doing at the completion of the Preliminary Hazard List (PHL),

The first Hazard that we will analyze is (X1) during the takeoff which is doing by launching the UAV, using a pneumatic launcher from the ship. There were not accidents reported during this process. The hazard is low and the recommendation of more automation after the PHL analysis concluded that the system will be improved we will continuum to use the PHL/A tool with the levels of  “Catastrophic = I, Critical = II, Marginal = III, Negligible = IV”, provide in (Barnhart, October 2011).

      

                            Preliminary Hazard List / Analysis (PHL/A)

Date 12/05/2015                Prepare By: Darnall Sanchez              Page1 Of 5

“Operational Stage:          __ Planning    __ Staging   X Launch   __ Flight    __ Recovery

TRACK	HAZARD	PROBABILITY	SEVERITY	RL	MITIGATING ACTION	RRL	NOTES
X1	Low	C	III	8	More automation	9	Improvement

“RL= Risk Level, RRL = Residual Risk Level     Probability, Severity, and risk levels defined in MIL-STD-882D/E” (Barnhart, October 2011)

The second Hazard to analyze and evaluated is (X2) and is planning regarding with the operation during the preparation for the mission, the hazard is low and has been evaluated as follow;    

             Date  12/05/2015                Prepare By: Darnall Sanchez              Page 2 Of 5

“Operational Stage:          _X Planning    __ Staging    __ Launch   __ Flight    __ Recovery

TRACK	HAZARD	PROBABILITY	SEVERITY	RL	MITIGATING ACTION	RRL	NOTES
X2	Low	C	III	8	More CMR	9	More train

 “RL= Risk Level, RRL = Residual Risk Level     Probability, Severity, and risk levels defined in MIL-STD-882D/E” (Barnhart, October 2011).

The third hazard is Staging (X3), the hazard is low and not action is require until more information is available.    

        Date12/05/2015                   Prepare By: Darnall Sanchez              Page 3 Of 5

“Operational Stage:          _ Planning    X_ Staging   __  Launch   __ Flight    __ Recovery

TRACK	HAZARD	PROBABILITY	SEVERITY	RL	MITIGATING ACTION	RRL	NOTES
X3	Low	C	III	8	None	8	Not action req.

“RL= Risk Level, RRL = Residual Risk Level     Probability, Severity, and risk levels defined in MIL-STD-882D/E” (Barnhart, October 2011).

The fourth Hazard is Flight. The UAS have records of lost link, and it’s a high hazard. By improvement of new technology in GPS navigation and link communications we will see a considerable improvement in the system.      

Date12/05/2015                   Prepare By: Darnall Sanchez              Page 4 Of 5

“Operational Stage:          _ Planning    _ Staging   __  Launch   X Flight    __ Recovery

TRACK	HAZARD	PROBABILITY	SEVERITY	RL	MITIGATING ACTION	RRL	NOTES
X4	high	C	II	4	GPS link	6	Improvement

“RL= Risk Level, RRL = Residual Risk Level     Probability, Severity, and risk levels defined in MIL-STD-882D/E” (Barnhart, October 2011).

The Fifth hazard analyze is Recovery. Recovery difficulties during the bad weather or unquiet seas were reported. Other that lost the UAV, the hazard was considered low. The recommendation after the analysis was the improvement is the need of autonomous landing system.       

Date12/05/2015                   Prepare By: Darnall Sanchez              Page 5 Of 5

“Operational Stage:          _ Planning    _ Staging   __  Launch   __ Flight    X Recovery

TRACK	HAZARD	PROBABILITY	SEVERITY	RL	MITIGATING ACTION	RRL	NOTES
X5	Low	B	II	4	Autonomous landing	6	Improvement

“RL= Risk Level, RRL = Residual Risk Level     Probability, Severity, and risk levels defined in MIL-STD-882D/E” (Barnhart, October 2011).

According to The Operational Hazard Review and Analysis (OHR&A) to the small UAS ScanEagle, the recommendations of improvement to reduce the risk in the hazards that this system actually has, and the potential applications the ScanEagle can be used on. And finally the application to the ORM Assessment Tool helped us on how the SUAS operators safely assess their ability to accomplish the mission.

Description, category and environmental excerpts from MIL-STD-882D/E

References

Barnhart, R. K. (October 2011). UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS.

ScanEagle, B. I. (2015). Unmanned Systems And Manufactures.

            

Automatic Takeoff and Landing

 A description and analysis of some of the capabilities and limitations of two automated systems during the takeoff and landing operations and their effects on safe operations will be discussed in this paper.

First, I will outline some of the functionality of the autopilot uses for the manned Airplane Boeing 737 takeoff and landing. The performance is described below and this is done by the pilot manually flying the airplane or by the pilot through the autopilot. The pilot monitors   the system which allow the position of the plane before takeoff. If there is something wrong the pilot can des-engaged the autopilot at any time, during the takeoff or while landing the aircraft. Explanation on how the pilot or copilot operates the autopilot is described below:  

“The pilot can monitor the airplane using the auto pilot and for airplane performance and

While monitoring the system receives only an indication that, using maximum thrust, the airplane is still capable of achieving a desired result, using scheduled thrust. Further, it does not indicate where on the runway particular speeds are expected to occur or where the airplane can be stopped from current position and speed”.

The speeds are very important so at this level the pilot have to be aware of these need it speeds, before the airplane is airborne. Also David said in the report that; 

“The main future of the system is an airplane takeoff and landing performance monitoring system which utilizes runway, ambient condition, flap setting, and airplane loading characteristic information, input both manually and automatic maintain continuous communication with the transducers to a computer, to generate acceleration for predicting airplane performance during takeoff and landing”.

 There is not clear explanation on how the monitoring system controls the information with automatic control. Looking to the way the pilot monitors before the takeoff roll, David explain

“The take-off and landing performance monitoring system provides the pilot with graphic and metric information to assist in decisions related to achieving rotation speed (VR) within the safe zone of the runway or stopping the aircraft on the runway after landing or take-off abort. One-time inputs of ambient temperature, pressure altitude, runway wind, airplane gross weight, center of gravity, selected flap and stabilizers setting are utilized in generating a set of standard acceleration-performance data” (David B, september 1991).

 Continually supervision of this system is required by the pilot for complete verification of the information gather from the computer. All Know data is very important as the report said;

“We have to know Runway length available for rotation, run way length available for stopping, an estimated runway requirements of throttle position, engine pressure ratios, ground speed, calibrated air speed, along-track acceleration, are used in computing engine performance. A comparison of measured and predicted values is utilized in detecting performance deficiencies. These comparisons and the runway length computations lead to GO/ABORT signals. An important feature of the algorithm is that the estimated runway rolling friction is updated based on measured acceleration performance, resulting in more accurate predictions of future performance. Airplane performance predictions also reflect changes in head wind occurring as the takeoff roll progresses.” (David B, september 1991)

This system is very reliable and demonstrates good performance in automation and reducing cockpit work load and increasing safety considerably. It is very important for the pilots to maintain the manual skill necessary for all stages of flight. It is important for pilots to learn well how to timely troubleshoot software or hardware problems. Such problems can degrade the system operations and integrity variables. Runway contamination and wind shear are not easy to be determined by the system and the pilots should exercise full awareness in this situation for the safety of the flight.

The second system to analyze is the UAV full Size Cypher UAV.  System can be used for law enforcement in the private sector. This UAV can be flown by using the conventional radio control hand set or automatic functionality with system manager right and left displays with supervision.

Operational characteristics of the system are described as:

“The System safety has been improved due to the shrouded blades. At the same time the design concept provides improved hover and precision maneuver characteristics. The flight control of the system is supervision, the operator directs the motion of the platform, but does not fly it”.

We know that the operator only act as an observer during this part. But the system

will be assisted by the ground operator. As is explain by the report;

                              “ Supervisory control allows the system to be operated by field personnel as a collateral duty and does not require a dedicated operator pilot. The on-board flight control system takes care of maintaining platform stability and coordinating the controls to respond to operator direction”.

 The sensor allow the UAV to fly to where the mission is planned as Douglas state;

                             “The air mobility platform was a shrouded rotor, VTOL UAV with a sensor suite mounted on top of it The platform would fly to target location where it would autonomously land and then conduct long term surveillance with its on board sensors. To reduce communication power and time of communication the sensor data was processed on-board the platform by automatic motion detection software”.

It is necessary to know previously how many more missions the system can

perform so the operator will performed the require activities. The report said;

                                                 “At the end of the mission or when surveillance was required in another location the system would be commanded to restart, takeoff and go to the new location or return to its launch point. In the ground control pilot interacts with the system thru the System Manager display that is split into two portions. The left side displays a digital map of the area of interest, and the right displays the payload sensor output to plan a mission the operator selects the route/destination way-points or areas to be searched using a mouse. Route planning software then plans a safe route to select the way-points or search areas”.

 These two displayed monitors help the operator to operate the UAV auto pilot for takeoff cruise and landing all is done through the system manager. Douglas is ending by saying;  

                                “The proposed route is displayed to the operator for acceptance. Soft buttons for control of aircraft functions, such as; auto takeoff, cruise, search, etc., are also displayed on the bottom portion of the System Manager screen. The right side of the System Manager display shows real-time data from the onboard sensor. This data includes full video or FLIR imagery. Data from the FUR can be analyzed by an Automatic Target Recognition system to detect targets and provides target location information back to the System Manager. Aircraft and target position along with track history are displayed on the digital map.” (Douglas Murphy, November 1998.)

 Some considerations are very important in this system. This system can be operated manually and automatically. The Cypher UAV can also be used for local missions and commercial applications. However, safety could be degraded in the event of software corruption during the takeoff or landing or during the mission. In the event that the operator made a mistake programming this system, there is no clear way to detect it. The problem would be that there is only one operator whom interacts directly with the UAV. The shrouded blades are a very important safety issue, therefore more simulation and fly hours are necessary to comply with the safe standards required from the FAA to gain public confidence for integration of this system in to NAS.

These two systems show the advance technology for operation of automatic systems with sophisticated autonomy. Only time and experience using these systems will let the manufactures and the engineering industry learn and correct any computer glitches software, hardware related problems and operational deficiencies of these systems.     

References

David B, R. S. (September 1991). Airplane Take Off and Landing Performance Monitoring Systems.

Douglas Murphy, J. C. (November 1998.). Applications for mini VTOL UAV for Law Enforcement.