Voice Observation for Cross-Platform Communications Assessment and Learning Support (VOCCALS)

Cross-platform verbal communications are critical to complex Air Defense missions, where distributed Warfighters work collaboratively across multiple audio channels to build and maintain situational awareness and execute coordinated tactics in fast-paced operational settings. Although systems such as the Navy’s Next Generation Threat System (NGTS) capture and provide access to coordinated live and recorded training exercise data and audio recordings, Instructors must still monitor, understand, and interpret massive amounts of noisy communications occurring across multiple channels in high-tempo exercises and manually assess performance against exercise objectives. To address these needs, Charles River Analytics proposes to design and demonstrate a Voice Observation for Cross-Platform Communications Assessment and Learning Support (VOCCALS) system. VOCCALS will help Instructors understand and quantitatively assess cross-platform voice communications in complex Air Defense Operations and efficiently identify and discuss key communications learning events. Our VOCCALS system will leverage audio streams and recordings and exercise data available through NGTS to generate a parse-able log of cross-platforms communications and their semantic meaning, analyze these against role-based expectations for communications behavior in the exercise context, and automatically identify high-value learning events for Instructors to explore and brief through coordinated views and extensions to NGTS-ART reports. We will use proven Cognitive Systems Engineering methods to expand upon our deep expertise in the Air Defense domain and determine how we can best incorporate VOCCALS with current and emerging analysis and reporting tools. Collectively, VOCCALS will aid busy Instructors by automatically parsing and assessing cross-platform audio transmissions against expected communications skills and behaviors within the operational context of Live, Virtual, and Constructive (LVC) training events, and help Instructors efficiently generate effective briefing materials for After Action Reviews (AARs).