Human-Machine Interfaces for Coordination Decision Support in Tactical Settings

Mobile Army commanders must frequently adjust their planned course of action (COA) in response to events and changes in the Battlespace. Advances in the battlefield information infrastructure and related technologies provide new opportunities for the development of human-machine collaborative systems to support decision-making in this context. The objective of this effort is to develop a "joint cognitive system" that will enable software agents and humans to effectively collaborate to evaluate, coordinate, refine and decide on optimal COAs. This project, which focuses on collaborative user interface development, complements the DARPA COORDINATOR project, which focuses on software agent development. We propose to employ the Cognitive Systems Engineering framework combined with an Ecological Interface Design approach to develop the system, which we call WICTOR. In our solution, the user interface provides a common framework for information exchange between the human and machine, as well as a mechanism for the human to guide the machine expert. The system will support functions ranging from monitoring the battle situation, detecting deviations from the plan, developing / selecting alternative COAs, and coordinating these COAs with other combat units at various levels of command.