Applying Advanced Human Engineering Methods to Mission Planning for Multi-Manned or Unmanned Air Vehicles

The Visual Planning, Execution and Review-Carrier Air Wing (ViPER-CVW) system has been designed to provide Air Wing strike planners an integrated, 4-D planning capability that will facilitate near-real-time planning, review proposed plan execution, quickly generate planning products, share plan information across individual units, and reduce errors and planning time due to manual data transcription. The primary goal of this Phase 2 SBIR project is to identify inefficient, confusing, and error-producing aspects of the current mission planning interface and implement improved HCI methods to correct them. A primary objective of this work will be to identify and implement workflows which guide the user through the system functions required to achieve desired planning tasks. A User-Centered Design approach will be used throughout development, seeking frequent feedback from system users on how the current features are or arent fulfilling their needs and modifying or adding features in subsequent development cycles in order to ensure ViPER remains a valuable tool for Navy multi-aircraft mission planning.