Human Factors Assessment for Drone Operations: Towards a Virtual Drone Co-Pilot

Drone operations are prone to incidents caused by human error. Therefore, a careful consideration of the human factors and operator flight parameters that affect the performance of drone pilots is required. Based upon an analysis of these parameters, it is possible to deduce what parameters correspond to behaviour exposed by ‘good’ pilots and what behaviour corresponds to behaviour exposed by ‘bad’ pilots. Within this paper, the development of an AI-based expert system that is able to perform such an assessment in real-time is discussed. The expert system is exploited as a virtual co-pilot tool that continuously monitors flight performance and warns pilots when bad flight behaviour is detected, not dissimilar to advanced driver assistance systems in the car industry that warn drivers when not paying attention to the road.