Effects of Video Bandwidth Compression Processing on Operator Performance in the Mini-RPV System
The purpose of this study was to evaluate operator target detection and recognition performance under realistic conditions to provide design information for the Army Mini-RPV (Remotely Piloted Vehicle) system. Bandwidth compression, atmospheric attenuation, target numerosity, target aspect angle, target type, and background complexity were investigated. The tasks included detection and recognition of realistic tactical vehicle targets with a 256 by 262 element video system. There were five bandwidth compression levels with respect to a 3.02 megabit per second uncompressed rate. Detection performance was significantly degraded at a 15:1 compression ratio, and recognition was degraded at a 7.5:1 compression ratio. Both target numerosity and aspect angle were associated with significant differences in performance. Atmospheric attenuation, target type and background complexity effects were not statistically significant.