A Tool to Represent, Analyze, and Collaborate on Knowledge for HSCB (TRACK-HSCB)

Counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions are an ever-increasing priority for today’s military. These missions could be supported at all echelons by insights from emerging human socio-cultural behavior (HSCB) models. However, there is frequently a disconnect between HSCB models’ outputs, locally generated patrol reports, data from other units, and decisions made at different echelons. HSCB model outputs are also characterized by meta-information (qualifiers such as credibility, accuracy, or level of resolution) that places an additional cognitive burden upon the decision-maker reasoning about alternative courses of action (COAs). To enable warfighters to better exploit the potential benefits of HSCB models, we propose to design and demonstrate a Tool to Represent, Analyze, and Collaborate on Knowledge for HSCB (TRACK-HSCB). Three main components characterize our approach. First, our Manifest Content Analysis Component will analyze entire corpora of text at a time to extract structure from SITREPs and other tactical reports. Second, our Topic Map-Based Visualization Component will unify the data types provided by HSCB models and patrol reports, to provide geospatial, temporal, and correlative views relative to warfighter needs. Third, our Visualization Sharing Component will allow distributed collaborative teams of warfighters to share and manipulate views, supporting joint situation understanding and planning activities.