Cognitive Overload in the Cockpit of Tomorrow
Over the 2022 calendar, the Tactical Athlete Leadership Board examined the issue of cognitive workload and offloading, specifically associated with aviators across the different branches of the military. This post outlines some of the concerns and challenges that will be faced by the warfighter of tomorrow as technology integration places additional demands on pilots.
Cockpit of helicopter mockup at AUSA Annual Meeting Expo, October 2022
The battlefield of tomorrow is being envisioned as a fully connected environment where units across the domains of air, sea, space, land and cyber all fluidly share information and operate in synchronicity.
But as this new existence comes closer to reality, questions are being raised around how connected is too connected and how to ensure that military personnel get the information they need to facilitate and assist with decision making while avoiding cognitive overload.
This concern is perhaps best presented when considering the pilot. Pilots exist across the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines, and they increasingly operate in what are known as glass cockpits, where traditional dials and gauges have been replaced by digital displays. Although this evolution has been commonplace in the cockpits of commercial and recreational aircraft, the nature of military procurement has led to a notable upswing of screens in the cockpit with the deployment of the next generation of airframes.
These multi-function displays, especially when combined with traditional heads-up displays and the more recent advent of helmet-mounted displays, are now being viewed as the means to deliver all manner of consolidated sensor data and information to the pilot and aircrew.
The military’s Joint All-Domains Command and Control (JADC2) initiative envisions a world where information is unified across the various domains where the military operates, and provides the foundation for new technology and information to be integrated and leveraged. From synchronizing operations with naval or ground forces, to working alongside autonomous “wingman” drones, a pilot will soon be connected and supported by more streams of information than ever before.
These new streams of information also represent additional cognitive load for pilots. Not only are they still tasked with flying the aircraft and completing their operational tasks, but they will also be presented with additional information and insights from allied forces, resulting in a constant need to quickly and efficiently process, organize, analyze and prioritize the different data feeds and information to make decisions in the moment.
Concerns about “information overload” are not unique to pilots. Similar challenges can be expected for warfighters operating in both the unmanned aerial domain as well as the cyber and space domains. In each of these domains, the operating environment for warfighters is an enclosed station, often confined and isolated, while also interacting directly with technology. That interaction offers direct access to a large quantity of data, and a need to process and take action quickly.
To mitigate these concerns, focused training on mental performance techniques, including mindfulness to alleviate cognitive overload and fatigue should be practiced. These practices can also be paired with investment in artificial intelligence technologies to assist with offloading responsibilities, although relying solely on artificial intelligence to proactively prioritize and display the most important information comes with its own concerns. As warfighters become more connected and spend more time relying on technology, continuous effort and study needs to take place on human-machine interaction and the development of trust in autonomous or semi-autonomous systems.