Features of perceptions of climate and microclimate conditions in occupational environment of external pilots of unmanned aircraft systems

Abstract

Introduction. An analysis of military campaigns in recent years shows how operators of unmanned aircraft can be used extremely effectively. Therefore, the study of working conditions of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), in-depth analysis of the impact of occupational conditions on their bodies is important to develop a set of measures to maintain their long-term occupational health and high defense capabilities.

The purpose. To identify informative indicators of climatic and microclimatic working conditions of UAS external pilots I class "Light" and establish the level of their perception on operators.

Materials and methods. We studied 41 servicemen - men aged 20-35, who had experience in managing UAS Class I " Light " and were involved in a wide range of occupational tasks. According to a specially designed questionnaire, which reflected the question of feeling the impact of climatic and microclimatic factors during their occupational activities, was evaluated their impact on functional status using a 100-point scale (the main factors of climate and microclimate were taken into account, which may affect the reliability of the functional responsibilities of UAS operators). Statistical analysis of data was performed using the methods of parametric (Student's t-test) statistics, cluster and factor analysis using STATISTICA 13.3. software.

Results. It is shown that different components of working conditions had different effects on the functional state of external pilots (operators) UAS. Changing this state creates a sense of action of the components of working conditions. Even a cursory analysis of the quantitative assessments of the perceptions of the group of unmanned UAs shows a significant heterogeneity of the estimates obtained. One part of this group had relatively low ratings of perceptions, and the other - quite high. To confirm the hypothesis, cluster analysis (k-means method) was applied to the whole data set. According to the vast majority of perceptions scores, their quantitative values had a large significant difference between the average values of the selected groups of "hypersusceptible " and "hyposusceptible". With the help of factor analysis, the presence of specific latent factors that contribute formation of the corresponding functional state by different mechanisms in each of the studied groups has been revealed.

Conclusions. Selected groups of "hypersusceptible" and "hyposusceptible" servicemen on the impact of occupational environment, which differ radically not only in the level of susceptibility to the impact of its components, but also significantly different mechanisms that contribute to their functional status formation and behavior in UA flight control. There are two hidden factors that form the quality of aircraft control and the functional state of UAS "hypersusceptible" operators, the first of them (F↑1 - "weather conditions factor") describes 26.1% of analyzed data dispersion, the second hidden factor (F↑2 - “Stabilizing factor") explains 19.9% of the variance of the original data. For “hyposusceptible” UAS operators, the factors contributing for formatting quality of aircraft control and the functional state are (F↓1 - factor of “hybrid action of environmental conditions”) describes 36.3% of the variance of the analyzed data, the second latent factor (F↓2 - noise factor) explains 18.3% of the variance of the original data. It is established that in " hyposusceptible " persons there is a mechanism for involving regulated characteristics of the external environment, and in " hypersusceptible " - a mechanism for stabilizing changes in functional status due to unregulated indicators of the external environment.