An assessment of the impact of ELEXSA visualizations on operator situation awareness

Abstract

Decision making in the tactical military domain is a time-critical, high stress, high stake activity. This paper presents the results of a human-in-the-loop experiment conducted to assess the impact of novel visualizations of radar detection ranges and safe areas on operator situation awareness of the tactical environment. The experiment involved comparing the performance of two groups of eight operators attempting to achieve the same tactical goals within the same scenario using two different, but functionally equivalent, situation awareness environments; one environment incorporated the novel visualizations outlined in this paper and one did not. The experiment showed that the novel visualizations:(1) increased operator survivability; (2) shortened mission duration; and (3) reduced the time the operator spent vulnerable to radar detection compared to the standard environment. Analysis of operator perceptions elicited via post simulation interviews showed that operators using the visualizations experienced lower workload and stress levels and had more accurate perceptions of their vulnerability to radar detection than those operators using the standard environment.