Intuitive Interfaces for Layered Sensing

Although advances in Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) technology are enabling access to a greater variety of data sources, the deciding factor is how human operators will be able to capitalize on this enormous volume of available information to support their decision-making. As the Air Force becomes more ‘info-centric,’ this creates a critical need to help military decision-makers process and exploit the content of large masses of data, both organic (e.g., situation updates from other team members) and non-organic (e.g., various forms of sensor data). To address this important issue, the Air Force Research Laboratory Sensors Directorate proposed the Layered Sensing concept as a means by which to provide decision-makers with fused, multi-source, multi-spectral, multi-dimensional information to support their universal battlespace awareness and subsequent decision-making performance. Accordingly, the overall technical objective of this SBIR Phase I project is to develop the Layered-Sensing Situation Awareness Intuitive Displays (L-SAID) toolkit to guide the design of intuitive interfaces that address the essential attributes and key issues related to the Layered Sensing concept. Phase I research will focus on creating a prototype of the L-SAID toolkit as well as illustrating intuitive interface design concepts for a specific ISR position. BENEFIT: By optimizing information integration and presentation, our L-SAID toolkit will maximize the safety of ISR operations while minimizing the occurrence of errors in complex, dynamic, information-rich Layered Sensing environments. This will ensure U.S Air Force battlespace dominance across a broad range of missions. L-SAID will be a useful tool that simplifies the creation of ISR interfaces by helping system developers sort through multiple design guidelines and techniques to identify those that best support global SA. Our theoretically-based user-centered approach is expected to significantly expand the commercial appeal of L-SAID both within the Air Force and to external organizations such as the National Security Agency (NSA), NASA, and the FAA. Other military users and providers of information to the Layered Sensing architecture and information space, such as the Army’s Future Combat System, would also benefit from the products developed in this project. This product is applicable to any domain in which individuals must analyze, synthesize, and convey large amounts of data to perform cognitively demanding tasks while maintaining high levels of individual and team SA, including, for example, reconnaissance pilots, air traffic controllers, security analysis, Homeland Security experts and NASA controllers. With these teams, the quality of their SA is critical for successful performance outcomes. Decision-makers in these domains may perform different tasks, but the critical need for timely, relevant, accurate, and trusted information to achieve and maintain SA remains the same. The L-SAID tool can be easily adapted to suit this wide variety of domains and end users. If carried through to Phase II and III, our L-SAID toolkit will be capable of quickly and easily transitioning to any new domain following minimal modifications.