Blended and Advanced Decision GUI Environment for Reasoning Support (BADGERS)

Achieving operational availability of mission systems is challenging for naval shipboard maintainers, who analyze large amounts of maintenance data to address equipment repair and replacement. Currently, data is available through disparate sources that insufficiently portray the criticality of correcting the malfunction or reveal interrelationships and overall operational impacts. To address this, we propose to design and demonstrate a Blended Advanced Decision GUI Environment for Reasoning Support (BADGERS). The BADGERS’ decision-support system (DSS) will enable shipboard maintainers to rapidly analyze system status and predicted malfunctions, evaluate high-level mission impacts, and efficiently make maintenance decisions through intuitive and innovative data visualizations. Under the proposed Phase II BADGERS effort, we will first expand prior analyses to identify the requirements for effective support tools for efficient maintenance operations. As part of this effort, we will assess current and emerging tools and maintenance systems. Next, we will leverage the outputs of this analysis to refine the design of BADGERS’ ecological visualization and integrated workspace concepts. Finally, we will expand the breadth and depth of our current prototypes and integrate these with representative Navy maintenance technologies. We will use these prototypes to demonstrate and evaluate our approach and to deeply explore the complexities of maintenance operations.