Pushing the wrong button: Bad button placement leads to drone crashes

Poor ergonomic design on drone-control stations invites accidents.

A drone that crashed on the roof of an Iraqi house is recovered by Marines in 2006.

US Marine Corps Photo

Unmanned aircraft crash. In fact, they crash a lot—though there's no recent specific data, the Congressional Research Service reported last year that despite improvements "the accident rate for unmanned aircraft is still far above that of manned aircraft." And while many of those accidents can be attributed to hostile fire or terrible flight conditions, a significant percentage of drone crashes is caused by human error. A December 2004 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study of Defense Department drone crashes found human factors to be a causal factor in about a third of the cases the researchers examined.

But as four human factors engineering researchers have found, sometimes the accidents are by design. That is, the design of the systems that operators use to fly the drones are so bad that they invite accidents. A recent Ergonomics in Design article reported that a small but significant number of crashes could be directly attributed to bad ergonomics on ground control station hardware. These factors may have played a major part in crashes that were attributed to other causes.

Take, for example, one drone crash in 2006. As the operator brought the drone in for a landing, he meant to flip the landing gear button on the control joystick but accidentally hit the nearby ignition switch instead—shutting off the engine in mid-flight. The $1.5 million drone plummeted to the ground, a total loss. On another occasion, glare on a screen was so bad that a drone operator couldn't read an alert and mistook it for a landing signal—again killing the engines before the drone had landed.

Unmanned aircraft have been pushed into service so quickly in the last decade that their control systems were often still in development when they arrived on battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite many of the systems being based on technology very similar to the average PC—and the level of automation in drones continuing to increase as operations move from flying with a joystick to a mouse—the Department of Defense has still not developed human factors standards for ground control station systems, even as the systems have matured. Considering how much human factors engineering goes into nearly every bit of other weapons system procurement (and having worked as a contractor at the Army Test Lab at Aberdeen Proving Grounds at one point, I can attest that it's significant), that's a bit of a surprise.

The authors of the report were Dr. Qaisar "Raza" Waraich (an engineer at Smartronix who recently completed his PhD at George Washington University) and GWU faculty members Dr. Thomas A. Mazzuchi, Dr. Shahram Sarkani, and adjunct instructor David F. Rico (who has also done UAS design work for the US Navy). They surveyed 20 drone operators about the characteristics of their ground-control station systems and found that there was a 98 percent overlap in the input and output devices used by ground control workstations and those used by general purpose computers. Some devices even drew from the realm of computer and console gaming.

Therefore, they concluded, drone systems could benefit greatly from the application of well-established ergonomic standards for general-purpose computing workstations—specifically, the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and American National Standards Institute's ANSI/HFES-100-2007 standards for computing workstations.

"The IO category of ANSI/HFES 100-2007 specifies the ergonomic shape of auxiliary input devices that best conforms to humans, bodily constraints, and layout," Waraich and his co-authors wrote. If the DOD used the standard as the basis for acceptable drone pilot workstations, such as button layout specifications that take hand and finger movements into account and try to avoid those that can cause hand fatigue, "many [drone] mishaps may be avoided."

Hopefully, the FAA will take human factors into account before it starts certifying any drones to fly in US airspace.

Therefore, they concluded, drone systems could benefit greatly from the application of well-established ergonomic standards for general-purpose computing workstations

I'm having some issues with this statement. From a standpoint of someone who worked extensively in the aerospace industry, with a large focus with cockpit instrumentation, why take this route? For the past 100+ years we've steady improving cockpit layouts in order to minimize human induced accidents. Most of those layouts are written in blood. IE, you don't put a master communications switch next to weapons armament array and such. Since these drone pilots are still technically piloting aircraft, why are we deviating so far from best practices? A landing gear switch and an engine control on the same controller, hell, on a stick at all, sounds like there is a major disconnect in thinking somewhere.

I'm not saying operators need a full cockpit mockup or something, but it does sound like someone designing these thinks should take some advice from a good avionics engineering firm.

I was flying my drone over the desert when I spotted the enemy. As I flew in closer, I noticed the contraband to be significant and contacted my superiors. They instructed me to take them out. As I banked around the hillside, I made sure the cannons of my drone were pointed directly on the kill spot, and all targets were locked on. I squeezed the trigger, but something else happened. My screen went blank, and then I saw it, the photo of my family I had on my desktop. The cursed Windows key had claimed victory over us yet again. By now, I'm convinced it was conceived in the Cold War to interrupt missions everywhere.

Part of the solution is to make the drone require much less hands-on piloting; for example, both the Global Hawk high-altitude long endurance UAV and the Fire Scout vertical takeoff and landing UAV require no hands-on piloting: they taxi, take off, fly around, and land themselves with the human in the loop providing supervisory control only. The Predator's lack of autoland is a huge factor in its sky-high mishap rate.

.....Since these drone pilots are still technically piloting aircraft, why are we deviating so far from best practices? A landing gear switch and an engine control on the same controller, hell, on a stick at all, sounds like there is a major disconnect in thinking somewhere.

I'm not saying operators need a full cockpit mockup or something, but it does sound like someone designing these thinks should take some advice from a good avionics engineering firm.

I didn't appreciate that these drones are truly 'piloted' in the sense of human beings adjusting the control surfaces. I thought they were 'directed' -- i.e., fly here, zoom in on this, land here. I thought control latency (at least for things like Predator or Global Hawk) prohibited actual piloting. If drone piloting really is more about sending commands to an intelligent robot than steering an airframe, that would be one reason why it would be smarter to match computer interfaces than traditional pilot interfaces. In fact, if drones are 'almost but not quite' able to be flown conventionally, it might be better to make the interface obviously different to specifically avoid wrong assumptions.

A December 2004 FAA study of Defense Department drone crashes found human factors to be a causal factor in about a third of the cases they examined.

The Afgan war had been going on for 3 years and Iraq had just started 1 year ago when this study was completed. The MQ-1 Predator drone wasn't even armed until 2001, and the bigger drones like the Reaper were not introduced until 2007.

Given the rapid pace of UAV development, this 9 year old study is not very relevant.

Surprised they're going to mouse control. Tried the newest release of MS Flight simulator (the free to play) and spent about 2 hours with the mouse only control, and it never felt right. The way the mouse is used for drones vs MS Flight is likely different, at least I would hope so, but I actually found the keyboard to be a better controller than the mouse in that game.

What I don't get is why the flight controls for a remotely piloted vehicle don't mirror a standard cockpit. I can walk in to Fry's Electronics and buy a basic flight console for maybe $1,000... why can't military contractors build the same kind of simulator that hobbyists put in their garages?

What I don't get is why the flight controls for a remotely piloted vehicle don't mirror a standard cockpit. I can walk in to Fry's Electronics and buy a basic flight console for maybe $1,000... why can't military contractors build the same kind of simulator that hobbyists put in their garages?

I didn't appreciate that these drones are truly 'piloted' in the sense of human beings adjusting the control surfaces. I thought they were 'directed' -- i.e., fly here, zoom in on this, land here. I thought control latency (at least for things like Predator or Global Hawk) prohibited actual piloting. If drone piloting really is more about sending commands to an intelligent robot than steering an airframe, that would be one reason why it would be smarter to match computer interfaces than traditional pilot interfaces. In fact, if drones are 'almost but not quite' able to be flown conventionally, it might be better to make the interface obviously different to specifically avoid wrong assumptions.

Yes, UREKA, someone learned something. In fact, the term "drones" was created by the media, and others, as a way to make them sound scary. While there is a lot of automation in these UAVs, most rely completely on a Ground Station to function. All UAV crews (yes there is a whole crew supporting these), just like any other aircraft or unit on the ground, operates on a set of Rules of Engagement they are strictly upheld.

You've learned something. Pass the word! UAVs save lives and tons of money. One of the reasons a lot of these human factors have not been taken care of is because it costs a LOT of money to get it right. The study is completely misleading to say that you can just give them an ergonomic work station to fix things. It is a lot of work, that probably should be done, but costs a lot of money. And UAVs are designed to be cheap and, honestly, replaceable.

I was flying my drone over the desert when I spotted the enemy. As I flew in closer, I noticed the contraband to be significant and contacted my superiors. They instructed me to take them out. As I banked around the hillside, I made sure the cannons of my drone were pointed directly on the kill spot, and all targets were locked on. I squeezed the trigger, but something else happened. My screen went blank, and then I saw it, the photo of my family I had on my desktop. The cursed Windows key had claimed victory over us yet again. By now, I'm convinced it was conceived in the Cold War to interrupt missions everywhere.

Edited for grammar.

For my keyboard, I can take a butter knife, wedge it under a key and gently pop it out. It does not damage the button and it can easily be put back (although the wider keys are more difficult). I did this with my CAPS LOCK key and I have never reverted nor regretted it. I might even do it for the Windows key and the Insert key.

In fact, the term "drones" was created by the media, and others, as a way to make them sound scary. While there is a lot of automation in these UAVs, most rely completely on a Ground Station to function. All UAV crews (yes there is a whole crew supporting these), just like any other aircraft or unit on the ground, operates on a set of Rules of Engagement they are strictly upheld.

Why is it that my $400 DIY drone has routines for takeoff, navigate points, return home, land, etc. but the $1.5M military drones lack these basic features? If human control was only used for unique situations like severe weather or radar and GPS failure, or when a human needs to make a decision like to fire a weapon, then all of these 'wrong button' errors would not be happening.

What I don't get is why the flight controls for a remotely piloted vehicle don't mirror a standard cockpit. I can walk in to Fry's Electronics and buy a basic flight console for maybe $1,000... why can't military contractors build the same kind of simulator that hobbyists put in their garages?

Then they cannot charge much more can they!! Must re-invent the wheel and sell said wheel with a new patent and significant upcharge...

I didn't appreciate that these drones are truly 'piloted' in the sense of human beings adjusting the control surfaces. I thought they were 'directed' -- i.e., fly here, zoom in on this, land here. I thought control latency (at least for things like Predator or Global Hawk) prohibited actual piloting. If drone piloting really is more about sending commands to an intelligent robot than steering an airframe, that would be one reason why it would be smarter to match computer interfaces than traditional pilot interfaces. In fact, if drones are 'almost but not quite' able to be flown conventionally, it might be better to make the interface obviously different to specifically avoid wrong assumptions.

Depends in large part on the company who designed and built the vehicle. The Predator and its descendants (actually, the line starts with the Gnat-750, the predecessor to the Predator) are for the most part "remotely piloted vehicles" (RPVs), since most functions require the human to exercise actual stick-and-rudder skills, which ain't easy with data link latency and the limited field of view of the vision sensor, especially for takeoff and landing. IIRC, at one point the Predator had about a 30% mishap rate, mostly attributable to lack of auto-takeoff and auto-land.

The Global Hawk (RQ-4), Fire Scout (MQ-8), and Navy UCAS (X-47B) are at the other end of the spectrum: the operator needs zero stick and rudder skills; the vehicles fly themselves, including takeoff and landing. The operator provides what is called supervisory control. This is in significant part due to the legacy of Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical, which originally developed the Global Hawk in the 1996-1999 timeframe, was purchased by Northrop Grumman in 1999, and is now the backbone of Northrop Grumman's UAV design shop.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.