Supervising and Controlling Unmanned Systems: A Multi-Phase Study with Subject Matter Experts.

Proliferation in the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) in civil and military operations has presented a multitude of human factors challenges; from how to bridge the gap between demand and availability of trained operators, to how to organize and present data in meaningful ways. Utilizing the Design Research Methodology (DRM), a series of closely related studies with subject matter experts (SMEs) demonstrate how the focus of research gradually shifted from "how many systems can a single operator control" to "how to distribute missions among operators and systems in an efficient way". The first set of studies aimed to explore the modal number, i.