HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERFACE FOR MACHINE-AIDED TARGET ACQUISITION

THE PROPOSED PHASE I RESEARCH WILL BUILD ON ALPHATECH'S COMBINED EXPERTISE IN MULTISENSOR DATA FUSION ALGORITHMS AND IN HUMAN ENGINEERING FOR COMMAND AND CONTROL SYSTEMS. THE GOAL OF PHASE I WILL BE TO UNDERSTAND AND DEFINE THE MOST CRITICAL ISSUES FOR THE DISPLAY OF MIILTISENSOR TARGET TRACKING AND TARGET IDENTIFICATION DATA TO HUMAN OPERATORS, AND TO DEVELOP A PLAN FOR TESTING HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE EFFECTIVE DISPLAY OF SUCH INFORMATION TO SUPPORT HUMAN DECISIONS. THE FIRST STEP WILL BE TO DEFINE A GENERIC FRAMEWORK THAT DEFINES THE NATURE OF THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE FROM A MULTISENSOR DATA FUSION PROCESS, AND ITS ASSOCIATED ERRORS AND UNCERTAINTIES. THE NEXT STEP WILL BE TO USE AN OPERATOR FUNCTION MODELING APPROACH TO REPRESENT THE HUMAN DECISIONS TO BE MADE BASED ON THIS INFORMATION, AND TO IDENTIFY THE INFORMATION NEEDED FOR EACH DECISION. WE WILL THEN DEVELOP HYPOTHESES ABOUT THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO DISPLAY THIS ESSENTIAL INFORMATION, AND AN EXPERIMENT PLAN FOR TESTING THOSE HYPOTHESES IN PHASE II. AREAS IDENTIFIED FOR INVESTIGATION INCLUDE METHODS FOR FILTERING OR GATING INFORMATION AS A FUNCTION OF OPERATOR WORKLOAD, METHODS FOR INCREASING OPERATOR CONFIDENCE IN AUTOMATED SUPPORT, AND GRAPHIC METHODS FOR DISPLAYING THE UNCERTAINTY ASSOCIATED WITH SENSOR DATA.