Dynamic Task Sharing for Autonomy (Savant)

Intro

Accelint is developing intelligent workload monitoring and adaptive task-sharing technology for the Air Force under contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory's Airman Systems Directorate. The Savant program addresses the challenges of distributed teams controlling unmanned aircraft, delivering dynamic task sharing and intelligent handoff capabilities to improve team coordination during mission execution.

Challenge

In current operations, a team of human operators, often distributed across multiple locations, is required to control a single unmanned vehicle. While team coordination is relatively simple when a mission is proceeding normally, when something goes wrong, team members can quickly become bogged down and overwhelmed. The Air Force needed technology that enables dynamic task sharing and intelligent task handoff across distributed teams to better manage peaks in demand during mission execution.

Solution

Accelint is developing Savant to enable multi-vehicle control stations with dynamic task sharing across distributed teams of operators. Key capabilities include:

• Workload monitoring using physiological and task-based workload assessment to recognize when tasks should be handed off and to whom
• Intelligent task handoff across distributed teams to better manage workload peaks
• Computational Situation Awareness (CSA) to enable improved situation awareness across the operator team, allowing task recipients to be quickly brought up to speed when assignments change

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Building on Accelint's prior work with Computational Situation Awareness, Savant enables the team to quickly and smoothly reassign tasks and responsibilities, improving team coordination when managing peaks in demand during mission execution.

Program Impact

Savant supports AFRL's research in human-autonomy teaming by addressing cognitive workload challenges in distributed unmanned aircraft operations. The technology enables more effective task management across operator teams, supporting the Air Force's objectives for scalable multi-vehicle control and improved mission coordination under demanding operational conditions.