Human Machine Autonomy in Medical and Humanitarian Logistics in Remote and Infrastructure-Poor Settings

Human–autonomy teams (HATs) incorporating uncrewed aerial systems (UASs) play critical roles in a variety of safety-critical systems. Increased autonomy in HATs in beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) UAS operations introduces new mission, safety, and logistics system performance challenges, and highlights the scarcity of in situ empirical research examining UAS and operator performance and operator situation awareness in HATs with embedded autonomy, particularly in remote and infrastructure-poor settings. This work addresses this research gap and examines the challenges and contributions of HATs employing various levels of autonomy in remote humanitarian logistics delivery systems, using initial empirical data from an on-going study in a resource-constrained environment. The preliminary results suggest the importance of considering human and technology performance and perceptions in HATs together, particularly in infrastructure-poor settings such as the Arctic, where leveraging limited resources is critical and the force multiplication effects of HATs may have significant impact.