Virtual Assistant for Air and Space Operations Center Staff

As modern command and control tools provide access to multiple information streams, one of the next objectives is to augment tools with new capabilities that assist operators with timely synthesis of any information relevant to the decisions at hand, while minimizing the burden of distraction from excess information. We propose to build the Air and Space Operations Center Assistant (AOC-ASSIST), which will leverage artificial intelligence techniques currently used in existing virtual assistants to support AOC operators in planning, monitoring, and executing tasks. The result will be a system that integrates with existing AOC tools and enhances decision making in the AOC by filtering, searching, and synthesizing heterogeneous data, operating both proactively in the background and providing assistance on demand. The objective is to augment existing tools by offering tailored assistance to operators for tasks that are time-sensitive, data-intensive, recurring, or otherwise challenging, via a user interface that reduces operator workload. During Phase I, the proposal team will conduct a feasibility study that includes: identifying candidate tasks to be performed by the assistant; defining how AOC-ASSIST will integrate with existing systems and processes; and identifying technologies that will complete the required tasks.