Adaptable Cognitive Decision Aids For Embedded Weapon Applications

The reduction of crew sizes in new Army systems such as Future Combat System (FCS) is threatening to overload the cognitive abilities of the remaining operators. Since past technology advances have already served to automate many of the rote proceduraltasks contributing to crew workload, much of the remaining improvement must come through application of automation and aiding for the more complex cognitive tasks, such as interpretation of trends and patterns. A need exists for developing cognitivedecision aiding capabilities that reduce cognitive workload of combat systems crews.Proposed effort will develop a cognitive decision aid for FCS addressing the function of tactical trends and patterns analysis for prediction of enemy actions based oncurrent states. Cognitive modeling techniques will be employed first to understand user requirements, then to create a suitable decision aid design and to implement the aid using the iGENT cognitive modeling tool. It will be scaleable and reusable inaccordance with ARDEC's component-based reference architecture concepts and will conform to Joint Technical Architecture-Army (JTAA), Appendix F. The Phase I prototype will include an executable cognitive model of the trends and patterns analysis process,implemented as a