Techniques for Effective Collaborative Automation for Air Mission Replanning

Abstract

We describe the most recent work-centered design for a military airlift organization. Earlier design cycles produced a set of coordinated visualizations to support synchronized air mission replanning. In this phase of the program automated planning support was incorporated to help C2 staff solve complex constraint problems across multiple missions and airfields. We describe our efforts at designing a replanning tool to work in collaboration with the human operator on complex replanning problems. A prototype was developed and used in an empirical evaluation comparing target user performance on complex constraint problems using either the visualizations alone or the visualizations with embedded automated support (collaborative planner). The collaborative planner significantly improved the speed and quality of dynamic replanning solutions. Post-test questionnaire ratings indicated users trusted the support provided by the automated aid. Design principles for effective collaborative automation are discussed.

Situation Awareness-Based Agent Transparency

“…Automation transparency has been characterized by observability, directability, adaptability, and broadening (DePass et al, 2011;Scott et al, 2009;Truxler et al, 2012). Observability refers to a shared frame of reference for the automation and operator.…”

A Work-Centered Approach to System User-Evaluation

“…In the ideal, a work-centered evaluation should include performance measures explicitly intended to evaluate these hypothesized benefits. For example, we conducted an evaluation of a prototype decision support system that was intended to improve dynamic replanning of airlift missions (Scott et al, 2009). The study included multiple performance measures including time to generate a solution and quality of solution.…”

“…15(4) 155 -174 colleagues (Eggleston, 2003;Eggleston et al, 2003). It has continued to be honed across more than 10 design and evaluation projects spanning multiple domains, including military airlift mission planning and scheduling software systems (Eggleston et al, 2003;Roth et al, 2006Roth et al, , 2017Scott et al, 2009;Truxler et al, 2012); advanced power plant control rooms ; and health care information technology systems (Clark et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2019).…”

Discussion Panel: Collaborative Automation Across Varying Time Scales of Interaction: What’s the Same? What’s Different?

“…We have been involved in a succession of projects aimed at designing advanced decision support tools for a military transportation organization (DePass, et al, 2011;Scott et al, 2009;Truxler et al, 2012a;Truxler et al, 2012b). Our users are tasked with continuously planning (and replanning) how best to satisfy the airlift and sealift requirements of a varied (and competing) set of customers, in light of limitations in both vehicle availability and port capacities.…”