Concept · Original study · Simulated data
Mission monitor for a degraded link
Concept draft · simulated data
An original concept study. A small crew supervises four uncrewed survey vehicles over a link that keeps dropping. The design problem: show data that may be out of date without hiding it, say clearly what is known when a vehicle goes quiet, and move a decision from the operator to the supervisor. The terrain, vehicles and data are all simulated.
At a glance
Problem: supervising automated vehicles when the data on screen may be old.
Constraint: an intermittent link, so any position can be an estimate.
Status: concept study with simulated data.
What is at stake
In this concept, the cost of a bad screen is a decision made on old data: a vehicle sent home or held because of a position that is no longer true.
What the concept shows
Link state is always visible in the header (“Link degraded”), next to whose view this is (“Operator view”).
Every vehicle label carries the age of its data: “live · 1 s” for a fresh position, “last seen 38 s ago” for one that has gone quiet.
Lost contact: the last known point is shown with a dashed estimated area, labelled “estimated area shown”, rather than a confident dot.
Reconnecting: a non-blocking notice, “Reconnecting to C. Showing last known data, marked by age.” The rest of the screen stays usable.
Alerts are listed newest first, each with its age. The one that needs a decision is highlighted.
Escalation: a plain question (“Send C home on its stored plan, or hold?”), what happens if nobody acts (the stored return plan starts after 60 s without a link), two actions (Approve return, Hold 60 s), and who raised it versus who decides.
Link quality over the last five minutes, with the number of drops.
Design questions the concept answers
Stale data: rather than hiding old values or greying them out, the concept keeps them on screen with an explicit age and an estimated area.
Who decides: rather than letting the operator act alone or the system act on a timeout, the operator raises the question and the supervisor decides, with the default stated on the card.
Reconnecting: rather than a blocking dialog, a notice that leaves the rest of the screen usable.
Not shown in this concept
Conflicting reports, permission denied, the supervisor’s own view, and the debrief after the event.
This is a concept with simulated data. No outcome is claimed.