Using EAST to inform Systems Architecture Design: Considerations relating to the use of UAVs in Search and Rescue missions

Abstract

There has been much interest in the use of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to support and extend missions within the Search and Rescue (SAR) space. However, detecting a human in the wilderness is a particularly challenging task. In the future, fitment of automated image classification aids may support UAV teams in correctly identifying targets within the environment thereby providing greater levels of support to ground search teams. The impact of such technology on the wider sociotechnical system however needs to be understood. This is because increasing the level of automation within a system can lead to degraded situation awareness, inappropriate calibration of trust and issues relating to complacency and technology overreliance. Within a SAR context, performance issues such as these could have disastrous consequences. In order to ensure systems are designed and integrated appropriately, it is essential that operator tasks are understood and that wider interactions are considered. This paper uses the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) framework to sharpen the questions surrounding anticipated user and task requirements for UAV equipped SAR missions. A series of interviews with active members of Mountain Rescue teams across the United Kingdom were conducted using a condensed version of the Schema Action World (SAW) taxonomy. The subsequent analysis and network representations afforded by EAST appear to provide a platform in which the human view of the system can be investigated with a number of design recommendations proposed.

Keywords: Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork, emergency response, search and rescue, Uncrewed/Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1003755