INTELLIGENT FORWARD OBSERVER TRAINER

AN INTELLIGENT TUTORING SYSTEM (ITS) WILL BE DEVELOPED AND INCORPORATED INTO A PROTOTYPE PC-BASED DESKTOP TRAINER FOR COMBAT FORWARD OBSERVERS AND FORWARD AIR CONTROLLERS. THIS TRAINER WILL USE DIGITAL VIDEO INTERACTIVE (DVI) TECHNOLOGY TO PRESENT THE TRAINEE WITH A SERIES OF HIGHLY REALISTIC INTERACTIVE SIMULATIONS OF THE FORWARD OBSERVER/CONTROLLER'S COMBAT ENVIRONMENT. THIS TRAINER MAKES EXTENSIVE USE OF THE UNIQUE MULTI-MEDIA PRESENTATION CAPABILITIES OFFERED BY DVI, INCLUDING FULL-MOTION COLOR VIDEO, HIGH RESOLUTION STILL IMAGERY, 3-D GRAPHICS, AND MULTIPLE CHANNELS OF AUDIO. THE INTELLIGENT TUTORING MODULE WILL BE INTEGRATED INTO THE SIMULATION, AND WILL INCLUDE DYNAMIC MODELS OF THE "TRAINEE", "EXPERT", AND "TUTOR." THE USER INTERFACE WILL BE SUPPORTED BY WRITING EXTENSIONS TO THE DVI SOFTWARE LIBRARY. THE FIRST PHASE OF THIS PROJECT WILL CONCENTRATE ON DEVELOPING, IMPLEMENTING AND TESTING THE ITS ON A SINGLE SKILL AREA SELECTED FROM THE SKILLS INVENTORY OF TYPICAL USERS. THE ITS STRUCTURES AND KNOWLEDGE-BASES WILL BE BUILT USING OBJECT-ORIENTED DESIGN METHODOLOGIES AND COMMERCIALLYAVAILABLE EXPERT SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT TOOLS. FUTURE WORK WILL ENCOMPASS FULL IMPLEMENTATION, TESTING AND REFINEMENT, AND INTEGRATION OF THE REMAINING FORWARD OBSERVER SKILLS INTO THE ITS.