The Perception of Airline Passengers on the Use of Pilotless Aircraft, Dissertation – Literature Example

Automating aviation might be labeled as the future technology, however, there are still several obstacles in front of introducing UAV to passenger planes. One of the most important one of these obstacles is people’s fear of flying and their mistrust of the new technology. The below literature review will analyze related literature to reveal whether people find UAV safer than pilot-operated planes, and whether or not they are open for flying through an airline that uses automated aviation systems.

The Aerospace Industries Association (2013: 7) states that there is a common misunderstanding regarding unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Even though these aircrafts are unmanned, they are “piloted”, and controlled by real pilots from the ground. This also means that instead of reducing the number of pilots needed in aviation, the new technology would indeed create more pilot jobs (Aerospace Industries Association, 2013: 8). Regarding domestic applications of the technology, the authors state that the systems are already in use within rescue, weather forecasting, and emergency management. However, the interesting fact related to introducing UAS-s in domestic carrier planes, quoted by the Aerospace Industries Association, (2013: 8) is that “when Americans are asked whether they support specific uses of UAS systems, their responses are positive”. The authors also ask the question: what is standing in the way of enrolling the technology into domestic operations. The first obstacle identified by the report is the lack of technological compatibility with current aviation control methods. Further, the authors of the study list a number of important misconceptions regarding UAV. These misconceptions are listed below:

• unmanned airplanes are dangerous for pilot-operated aircrafts and people on the ground
• the technology is designed for military use and monitoring tasks, instead of passenger carriers
• the technology is not significant enough in the aviation industry
• these technologies represent a threat to privacy.

Contradicting the above statements, the authors state that pilots on the ground controlling UAV-s have the same level of situational awareness as pilots on the airplane. Further, the effectiveness of the system has been proven in agriculture, intervention in case of natural disasters, and the number of UAS type systems built rose by more than 300 percent between 2005 and 2012 (Aerospace Industries Association, 2013: 13). Finally, the report confirms that data and images collected by UAS are regulated, in order to reduce privacy risks.

Tam (2011) talks about the public perceptions related to UAV-s. The author states that the greatest motivation for civilian operators to introduce the technology is to reduce cost of labor and make aviation safer. While the author points out several opportunities related to using UAV-s, he also states that the main obstacle is consumer perception about the safety of unmanned aerial vehicles. Even though 85 percent of accidents involving aircrafts are due to human error, as the author quotes MacSween-George (2003), people do not trust automated systems. Analyzing research results, the author concludes that the increased risk perception of the respondents is not due to their knowledge of facts, more importantly their fear of the unknown and untested technology. This also indicates that people are unable to make rational decisions at the moment, as they are not adequately informed about the safety of the technology; they decide on the safety and reliability of UAV-s on emotional basis. Tam (2011: 9) clearly points towards the direction of the right approach to positively influence public perception: “to further gain public acceptance and reduce the perceived risk involved, it seems education and greater exposure to UAV will be required”.

The Air Line Pilots Association International (2011) looks at UAV-s as an increased risk for users of airspace. Emphasizing the risks, the authors conclude that while there are several valuable uses of the system, if the integration is not completed responsibly and vigilantly, it can impose an increased safety vulnerability for users of airspace.

Creating a new survey. Tam (2011) pointed out the difference in respondents’ answers, based on the question regarding passenger UAV technologies. When the question mentioned “fully automated UAV airliner, only a small proportion of respondents supported the idea. When the expression “controlled from the ground” was used, the number of positive answers almost doubled. However, when the question offered an opportunity to have a pilot on board, controlling the remote operation, more respondents had a positive perception than negative (77 percent). The recommendation of the author, based on the research is that the introduction of technology would start with a “pilot on board” operation for passenger vehicles. However, respondents were mostly happy with using the technology for cargo aircrafts; therefore, companies could start introducing UAV-s in that market segment. Further, the author concluded that the level of familiarity with the new technology among respondents was generally low, therefore, education and effective communication of principles, safety features is needed to lay the ground for successfully moving towards UAV technology in passenger carriers.

Eyerman et al. (2013) quotes market predictions that assume that by 2015 the domestic sales of UAS is going to reach 40.000 units (Eyerman et al. 2013: 1). The authors came to similar conclusion as Tam (2011): that the public had a “fairly low level of awareness” (Eyerman et al. 2013: 2). The support of the public to use the technology was high, when they were asked about commercial, military, search and rescue uses. However, most of the respondents were concerned or highly concerned about the use of UAS in the domestic, general public aviation industry. Further, the study pointed out three of the major concerns of the respondents: safety, government’s ability to regulate companies and operations, and outside monitoring. The survey among law enforcement respondents revealed completely different concerns related to utilizing UAS: human resources implications, cost, safety, and regulatory considerations.

Nasser and Westin (2006) reviewed the different aspects of human factors in aviation that would affect the development and introduction of unmanned aerial vehicle systems. The authors first distinguished clearly between two types of automated aviation methods: remotely controlled vehicles and completely unmanned UAV operations. The authors call for developing a method of of unmanned operation that is “fail-safe”, before rolling out the technology. Indeed, the authors state that “Statistics from the US military suggest that the incident/accident rates for UAVs are several times higher than for manned aircraft” (Nisser and Westin, 2006: 8). Further, the recommendations of the authors include rolling out remotely-piloted operations before moving towards autonomous aircrafts.

The authors also state that there is a serious obstacle that prevents rolling out remotely controlled vehicles, and that is the fact that seeing and avoiding other traffic, obstacles is almost impossible. While the report is focusing on three main areas of using UAV-s, it does not mention passenger carrier application in particular. The three uses of UAV-s studied by the authors (Nisser and Westin, 2006) are to perform operations that can be limited by human capabilities, ones which would be carried out at a much lower cost, using automation.

The report identified some important potential risks associated with using aviation automation, provided that the design is “improper”. The most important of these risks are: reduced level of situational awareness, increased demand for monitoring, cognitive overload, increased risk of human error, and cost of training/selection reducing the amount saved by the company.

The most important criteria of introducing automation in aviation, determined by the authors are:

• keeping human jobs challenging and interesting
• replacing the repetitive and mundane human tasks
• performance monitoring needs to be built in the system
• the system needs to facilitate human monitoring.

The main recommendation of the study above is related to the schedule and process of rolling out automated systems in aviation. The authors state that initially, pilots should be trained for UAV operation in a way that they are knowledgeable enough to switch between different levels of automation, as required by the situation. Without having enough data that confirms the safety of automated operations, there is a need for building it up gradually, as Nisser and Westin (2006) suggest. Without rules created that prevent misuse and disuse (inappropriate use or rejection of automation), failures cannot be avoided. Finally, the authors recommend that the flexibility and response times for unexpected situation is tested within UAV-s, in order to successfully identify and eliminate areas of risk.

DeGarmo (2004) starts his review with looking at the historical perspective of UAV-s. The author states that even today unmanned aircrafts are mainly considered suitable for military use, as they were first introduced to that area of aviation. The history of unmanned aviation goes back to the Civil War, when balloons were used to drop bombs. Since then, technology, and the demand for aviation services, has developed greatly. Today, most people associate these planes with drone strikes, used in military combat. General mistrust of the technology related to civil use exists in the general population. While a few people are aware of UAV-s use of environmental monitoring and rescue services. Today, there are – according to the author – 41 countries engaged in using unmanned aviation vehicles. There are also several professional bodies and organizations that research, monitor, and create recommendations related to UAV-s. Unlike other authors mentioned above, DeGarmo (2004) states that the future of UAV technology is uncertain. The success depends on several aspects: cost compared with manned operations, industry trends, and public perception about the safety, reliability, and effectiveness of the new technology. In the military market, the growing use of UAV-s is clearly visible since the 1950-s. The use of UAV-s in the civil government and research market is also showing an upward trend. As commercial use of the vehicles is increasing, however, new regulatory and technological challenges emerge. Without establishing international, commonly accepted standards for applying the technology, as well as addressing liability issues, the industry is not likely to move forward any time soon.

Allowing UAV-s to enter the civil airspace brings up several concerns, listed by DeGarmo (2004). Based on military use of the system, the 2003 Congressional Research Service paper (2003) concluded that accidents are a hundred times more likely to happen using UAV-s than manned aircraft. Military accidents were studied and assessed by the author, and the study found that they were mostly due to power, flight control, or ground control issues. This indicates that the communication system between ground operations, flight control, and planning is not suitable for rolling out UAV-s in a large number, certainly not for passenger carriers.

While the author determines some important safety benefits of UAV-s, which are less commonly known, it is still important to note here that – given the safety record of unmanned aircraft vehicles used for military operation – the monitoring, safeguarding, and regulatory environment of the new technology needs to be further developed before these automated systems can take over control from human pilots and ground operators.

The main areas of development, described by DeGarmo (2004) are: setting up see-and-avoid requirement standards, system reliability, data security requirements, and compatibility with ground operation systems.

A recent review of the industry, created by the Adittes Ltd. (2012) provides the researchers with an accurate description of unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the study, the system consists of three features: the aircraft itself, the operator, and the ground control station. The authors state that the main debate of the industry is whether aircrafts should be operated by ground operators or human pilots. However, the industry paper confirms that the main use of these aircrafts should be civil industry operations, such as border control, communication relay, search, rescue, research, and disaster, environment management. The company does not mention the use of UAV-s in passenger carrying operations.

Weibel and Hansman (2004) state that current regulations of aviation are not suitable for UAV-s. The study features a closer look at the potential hazards, in order to create a safety assessment framework that would be used in the future to evaluate unmanned aerial vehicles. Ground impact hazard is measured for manned aircraft operations, and is currently set at

10-7 fatalities per hour. The authors recommend the UAV target level to be higher than this: possibly 10-8. The risks of ground impact are measured by accident occurrence rate, impact on populated area, debris penetration, and harm to public on the ground. Another risk assessed by the authors is midair collision hazard. The research shows that the higher the altitude is the lower the risk for collision is, therefore, the introduction of UAV-s in higher ground would be beneficial; initially set above FL 450.

Cox et al. (2004) analyze the capabilities of UAV-s in NASA’s operations and the possibilities to expand operations based on these capabilities. Similarly to other authors’ view, the report states that the main obstacles of development are the “technological and policy impediments” (Cox et al. 2004: 3) that need to be addressed. At the same time, the research study states that UAV technology is the most dynamically developing area of the aviation industry. The main obstacles determined by Cox et al. (2004) are the lack of airspace regulation suitable for UAV-s, the lack of cost-effectiveness, liability issues related to civic use, lack of flexibility, training issues, customer perception (negative views and mistrust), international barriers, and low perceived reliability. The authors suggest that before moving towards the civil market, cost analysis and a regulatory background would need to be developed. While some forecasts were published by the report for the next ten years, these will be omitted from the research, as they have no relevance in the light of current statistical data available about the industry’s growth. The authors further determine the main potential uses of UAV missions: use by the Department of Defense, and Civil applications. The civil applications category is broken down to four major fields: land management, commercial, earth science, and homeland security uses. The potential development gaps determined by the research are contingency management, multi-ship operations, formation flight, outside command and control, and deploy/retrieve features. As a conclusion, Cox et al. (2004: 7) point out that “the goal of fostering the capabilities of UAVs can most easily be accomplished by removing many of the technical and regulatory barriers to civil UAV flight”

Clothier and Walker (2006) talk about the perceived safety issues in the public and industry experts, which can only be addressed through establishing an Equivalent Level of Safety (ELOS) to manned operations. The major concern of the authors is that “Class A mishap rate of UAV systems is approximately two orders of magnitude poorer than human-piloted aircraft” (Clothier and Walker, 2006: 3). Therefore, in order to protect other airspace users, the authors recommend that initial restrictions are applied for utilizing UAV-s. The regulatory framework development that determines safety and accuracy standards is much needed in the industry before allowing unmanned airplanes to enter civil airspace. The main objective of the framework is to ensure that safety standards of unmanned vehicles are equivalent to manned aircrafts. For creating these standards, however, there is a need for determining the current level of safety among human-operated aerial vehicles. For this, there is a need to determine common hazards related to human operated aviation. The below two figures, adapted from Clothier and Walker’s study (2006: 7) will provide a clear overview of aviation hazards and risks.

Analyzing the NTSB accident database, the authors found that less than 20 percent of accidents of human operated aerial vehicles resulted in fatality between 1984 and 2004. Further, only 1.4 percent of all fatal accidents involved fatalities on ground. Therefore, determining the UAV aviation activity safety standards, the authors use the same assessment method as for human operated vehicles. While discontinued flight might only have an impact on people in the ground, midair collision can create a risk on people on board (see potential passenger operations or personnel of cargo operations), as well as people on the ground. These two risks are determined as primary hazard factors for unmanned aerial vehicle operations. Secondary hazards include falling debris, resulting in risk for people on the ground, as well as negative environmental impact.

The report recommends that – while there are different types of aviation activities, such as general, air taxi, and air carrier – a general standard of safety for all types of operations is developed for unmanned aerial vehicles. Further, the authors state that as human operated flights are becoming safer every day (see:  Clothier and Walker, 2006: 6, fig. 3), and the proposed single criterion that applies to all types of missions and vehicles should be determined at 1x 10^-6.

In order to achieve this standard target, the authors recommend that UAV-s would be introduced to operations, airspace, and systems where fatality risk is low. Further, safety standards should reflect the impact of the failure, instead of the occurrence. Analysis of accident locations based on different altitudes, regions, and air traffic needs to be completed in order to reduce the risk associated with introducing UAV-s to the civil airspace.

Reference List

Adittes Ltd. “Aditess Ltd. UAV R&D Activities” (2012) <http://www.aditess.com/docs/ADITESS%20UAV%20R&D%20ACTIVITIES.pdf>

Aerospace Industries Association, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Perceptions & Potential” (2010) <http://www.aia-aerospace.org/assets/AIA_UAS_Report_small.pdf>

Airline Pilots International “Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Challenges for Safely Operating in the National Airspace System” (2011) ALPA White Paper.<http://www.alpa.org/portals/alpa/pressroom/inthecockpit/UASWhitePaper.pdf>

Clothier, R., Walker, R. “Determination and Evaluation of UAV Safety Objectives” (2006) In: Proceedings 21st International Unmanned Air Vehicle Systems Conference, pages 18.1-18.16, Bristol, United Kingdom.

Cox , T., Nagy, C., Skoog, M., Somers, I., Warner, R. “A Report Overview of the Civil UAV Capability Assessment” (2004) <http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/111761main_UAV_Capabilities_Assessment.pdf>

DeGarmo, M. “Issues Concerning Integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Civil Airspace” The MITRE Corporation. MP 04W0000323>

Eyerman, J., Letterman, C., Pitts, W., Holloway, J., Hinkle, K., Schanzer, D., Ladd, K., Mitchell, S., Kaydos-Daniels, C. “Unmanned Aircraft and the Human Element: Public Perceptions and First Responder Concerns” (2013) <http://sites.duke.edu/ihss/files/2013/06/UAS-Research-Brief.pdf>

Nisser, T., Westin, C. “Human Factors Challenges in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): A Literature Review” (2006) School of Aviation. Lund University. <http://www.lusa.lu.se/upload/Trafikflyghogskolan/HumanFactorsChallenges UnmannedAerialVehicles.pdf>

Tam, Alice “Public Perception of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (2011). Aviation Technology Graduate Student Publications.Paper 3. <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atgrads/3>

Weibel, R., Hansman, J. “Safety Considerations for Operation of Different Classes of UAVs in the NAS” AIAA’s 4th Aviation Technology, Integration and Operations (ATIO) Forum. 20 – 22 September 2004. Chicago, Illinois, AIAA’s 3rd “Unmanned Unlimited” (2004) Technical Conference, Workshop and Exhibit. 20 – 22 September 2004. Chicago, Illinois