The United States Navy (USN) is heavily reliant on its ability to operate aircraft in the maritime environment. Done successfully, shipboard flight operations allow air-capable ships to act as mobile airfields, ensuring the USN's ability to maintain freedom of the seas. Typically rotary-wing aircraft land at the stern of USN surface vessels (i.e., a guided missile destroyer (DDG)). Ship movement creates turbulence induced by its superstructure, which may produce unfavorable conditions for rotary-wing aircraft just after takeoff and just before recovery. This ship-aircraft interplay is termed dynamic interface (DI). With the growing prominence of uncrewed aerial systems, the USN deems characterizing the DI a crucial step towards employing these systems from air-capable ships. The United States Naval Academy operates a fleet of 108 ft Yard Patrol Craft tasked with training future naval officers. One of these ships has been modified such that the air wake models a DDG to the 1/4 scale. This research documents the DI tests conducted with a remote-piloted drone through mission representative recoveries to the modified Yard Patrol Craft. While operating in the terminal area, the pilot assessed their workload via a modified Cooper Harper scale.


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    Title :

    Optimizing Drone Operator Workload in the Terminal Area for Shipboard Operations




    Publication date :

    2024-06-04


    Size :

    4210288 byte





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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