CTS 04 DEMO II

Collaboration Tools for Integrated Missile Warning Mission Rehearsal and Exercise

Mr. Eric Loomis

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

And

Mr. John Friskie

Sytronics, Inc.

USA

Abstract:

The Air Force Space Command is at the forefront of providing space based capabilities to battle commanders. This is especially so in the Force Enhancement mission area where space systems provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; ballistic missile warning; communications; weather; and navigation information to warfighters worldwide. Enabling the space force to meet the fast-paced and dynamic demand for this information are mission rehearsals and exercises meant to hone operator skills and optimize command and control processes. Inherent in these activities is collaboration between multiple parties--human to human, human to computer, and computer to computer. This collaboration takes place in all phases of these activities, from planning and set up to execution to post activity analysis.

Ball and Sytronics have developed collaboration tools to assist the space warfighter set up and execute these mission rehearsal and exercise events. Furthermore, several of these tools are readily useful on the operations floor to satisfy the collaboration needs of conducting distributed decision making. This computer-provided decision support and collaboration assistance is essential for space warfighters to continue to meet the increasing information and situation assessment needs of battle commanders.

At CTS 2004, we will demonstrate the collaboration technologies developed for the missile warning mission rehearsal and exercise domain. The demonstration will showcase the tools use in a number of activities. For setting up a mission rehearsal, we will demonstrate an intelligent event planning system that allows instructors to collaborate with intelligent software agents and other instructors to quickly form training plans and simulation environments that meet rehearsal requirements. This system utilizes Ball's K² product and jointly developed intelligent software associates. For executing a mission rehearsal, we will demonstrate instructor/student and student/student collaboration in the course of conducting the rehearsal. Here, again, intelligent software agents collaborate behind the scenes as commanded by the instructor to monitor performance data and alter the driving simulations as conditions require. Additionally, humans and agents work together to process the multitude of technical data coming from space based systems to meet the information needs, timing and prioritization constraints of commanders. Last, we will demonstrate how information, and more importantly the knowledge gained from the information generated in the first two phases, is captured and used as feedback to increase the quality of the next rehearsal/exercise cycle, or the operational system's design in the acquisition process.

Presenters:

Mr. Eric Loomis, R&D Program Manager, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Ohio, USA

Mr. John Friskie, Sytronics, Inc., Ohio, USA

Relevant Technologies:

KnowledgeKinetics™, Voice Recognition, Instructor Operator Station, Web-Based Planning and Training, Satellite Modeling, Student Instructor Interaction Models.

Short Bios:

Eric Loomis is a senior software engineer and manager of research programs for Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Wright State University. He has over twenty years of experience with modeling & simulation, collaborative engineering, and web-based training technologies. He is an active member of IEEE and has published several papers on software engineering and general information technology topics.

John Friskie is a senior program manager with the Modeling, Simulation, and Training Group of SYTRONICS, Inc. in Dayton Ohio. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters of Science in Computer Engineering (Artificial Intelligence) degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He has 14 years experience with decision aiding systems and intelligent command and control environments.