BATTLE GROUP TACTICAL DECISION AID AND TRAINING TOOL

Todays C4I decision aids, while delivered on hardware featuring graphical user interfaces, display rlatively few data graphs and provide little interaction with the graphics. Data re passive objects to be manipulated by the user. There are not "intelligent agents" running as background processes that provide assistance to the user in navigating the maze of data and that do his/her bidding. Perhaps most unfortunate, there is little use made of data graphs since data graphics and animations of data graphics are powerful media for conveying extensive, multidimensional data sets at a low cognitive cost to the operator. Virtual Reality (VR) and data visualization are related, emerging technologies that promise to radically alter the operator-machine interface (OMI). The proposed effort will result in the definition of a system architecture and the selection/definition of key hardware and software technologies for a Battle Group Tactical Decision Aid (BG/TDA) for the Navy's Copernicus C4I architectural approach; the development will focus on the OMI. The real-time, distributed system architecture for the BF/TDA will integrate exisitng and emergent virtual reality, data visualization, and object-oriented data base technologies and will provide a solid basis for developing and deploying the next generation of C4I decision aids. The effort will also define elements of ar ewearch plan to determine how various graphical techniques can best be used to exploit human perceptual skills for understanding complex multi-dimensional data sets.