A System for Facilitating Interaction Between Cognitive Engineers And System Engineers (FIBEA)

As today's military adapts to meet new challenges, a concomitant change in perspectives about technology acquisition has occurred. Central to this evolving viewpoint is the need for increasingly human-centric support systems, developed with traditional Systems Engineering (SE) processes, but incorporating Cognitive Engineering (CE) principles and practices. To support the coupling of these engineering approaches, we propose to develop and prototype a system for Facilitating Interaction Between Cognitive Engineering And System Engineering (FIBEA). Three core components characterize our approach. First, we will devise a common spiral engineering process incorporating SE and CE approaches to ensure acceptability in both communities. Second, we will develop methods for dynamically: (1) translating the requirements produced by the CE process into concrete system requirements; and (2) translating the system's functional capabilities and limitations into implications for the cognitive system design. Third, we will prototype a software system that provides this translation functionality, along with displays and interfaces designed for both cognitive and system engineers. We will leverage our team's expertise in both SE and CE practices to develop the common engineering process and the supporting FIBEA system, and will demonstrate the application of the process to the development of command and control decision-support software.