A Cognitive Systems Approach to Supporting Air Force Intelligence Analysis

United States intelligence analysts of today and tomorrow are faced with a paramount challenge of maintaining situation awareness in the midst of an ever-growing and changing capacity of available data. As the incoming data streams continue to expand, so do the expectations and requests placed on the analysts. Layered Sensing offers a promising solution to meeting the Intelligence, Reconnaissance, and Surveillance (ISR) requirements of this increasingly complex battlespace. This effort proposes a long-overdue cognitive systems approach to supporting Air Force intelligence analysts in achieving universal battlespace awareness by basing platform and sensor integration supports on the cognitive demands of the analysts’ tasks. Ecological interface and decision-centered design principles will guide the development of innovative user interfaces and decision supports, resulting in a powerful tool that will support optimal collaboration between the human analyst and technology assets. BENEFIT: The products of this effort will be tailored to the cognitive demands of Air Force intelligence analysts, resulting in signficantly improved accuracy and efficiency of their analysis tasks. The research findings and tool will be customizable to further support the analysis demands of other DoD intelligence analysis cells as well as those of emergency responders within FEMA and elsewhere.