1. Collaborative Time-Sensitive Targeting (TST)
End State Benefits
Enhanced decision making of operators and supervisors as well as improved task & team coordination
Improved user situation awareness & workload
2006 Objective
Requirements, scenario, & prototype design and evaluation of activity awareness & interruption recovery tools to support teamwork in synchronous operations
2006 Milestones
Development of Team Testing Lab completed (MIT)
Initial activity awareness tool development completed (MIT)
November: Complete evaluation of initial awareness tools (MIT)
December: Complete requirements & development of supervisory interruption recovery tools (MIT)
November: Begin adapting TRACS tool to team setting (MIT)
December: Requirements update for further activity awareness tools (MIT)
Approach
Identify & develop collaborative activity awareness interfaces to facilitate within and cross-team decision-making and coordination
Potential Customers
IDS – MMA, AWACS, FCS
Graduation Plan
2008 NCO Thrust
Project Plans
Strategic Alignment
System-of-System Efficiency
Strategic Theme Alignment
Network Centric Operations
Global Information and Collaboration
TRL to Date: 3-4
Collaborations: MIT $165K / AFRL $15K
External Leverage: CRADA AFRL/ HE; DARPA Augmented Cognition Contract; Design Interactive, Inc.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
CY:
‘06
‘07
‘08
Project Tasks / Funding Levels
$219K*
$219K*
$219K*
Initial success with developing and transitioning multimodal technologies such as 3-D audio, but with increased interest in supporting network centric operations, the project focus is shifting to developing display technologies which support more essential coordination issues in cross-team synchronous and handoff operations
Overarching objectives of this new project focus are:
Improving collaborative decision making under time pressure and uncertainty
Improving task coordination within teams of operators in networked operations during synchronous operations and handoffs
Improving task continuation and coordination during operator handoff in shift changes
These objectives will be addressed through the design and evaluation of improved collaborative display technologies for a specific time-critical task domain relevant to other ongoing work at Boeing, and Boeing partners
The specific goals of the MIT project include:
Develop representative collaborative task scenario
Complete: The Generalized Team Coordination task. The GTC task involves a team of operators working together to secure passage for an important political convoy through a large hostile region. The team includes Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators and a mission commander overseeing the team’s mission operations. Each UAV operator is responsible for supervising multiple, highly autonomous UAVs to identify hostile contacts and for coordinating with an external strike team to prosecute targets.
Identify potential technology opportunities in this task domain to help address overarching project objectives
Complete: Initial investigations revealed that current collaboration technologies (e.g., , instant messaging) lack support for effective communication and coordination in workload-intensive operations. A recent approach in the collaborative technology literature of providing activity awareness appears to help teams coordinate their actions and reduce the workload associated with collaborating via technology.
Develop collaborative technology requirements to support the representative task scenario
Complete: Conducted cognitive task analysis on GTC task scenario to develop collaborative technology requirements, focusing on providing collaborative activity awareness.
Develop and evaluate prototype collaboration technology
Ongoing: Prototype collaborative awareness displays are currently being developed to evaluate the effectiveness of providing activity awareness information in a simulated GTC task environment during user experiments. The evaluation protocol is being developed along with appropriate teamwork metrics.
Planned (June-Nov’06): Evaluation of the prototype collaboration awareness displays
Design and build team testing environment for evaluating proposed collaborative awareness displays
Complete: Built Phase 1 of team testing environment: Reconfigurable Team Workstations & Mobile Team Stations
Planned (May’06): Built Phase 1 of team testing environment: Reconfigurable Team Workstations & Mobile Team Stations
Refine prototype collaborative awareness technology and evaluation protocols and metrics based on evaluation results. Also extend prototype to support operator handoff aspect of team task operations and integrate other HSI technologies, such as Persistent Contextual Interaction Techniques (PCIT) approach
Evaluate refined collaboration awareness technology
Iterate as necessary
Boeing team will use the results of already completed MIT and AFRL work (2005), ongoing (2006) work, and NCO thrust / C4I program inputs to develop requirements for Persistent Contextual Interaction Techniques (PCIT) approach – collaboration tools that can be used for within or cross team (spatial or temporal) notifications of information / actions required and or log data, to manage muand as a gateway for pulling supporting data; requirements may include speech input and audio cues.
Meetings with MIT
Requirements Definition/Refining for Awareness Tools
Scenario & Awareness Tools Design
Develop Team Testing Lab
Prototype & Evaluate Tools
Document Activity Awareness Tools
Development of Objective Team Metrics
Experimental Validation of Collaborative Awareness Tools for Specific Applications
PI: Mary E. Hornsby
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

2. 2006 Accomplishments to Date
AFRL CRADA & MIT Strategic Univ. Funding
Completed: Lab & portable testbeds (AFRL), Team testing lab (MIT); Integrated research plan
Leveraged: Aptima’s DDD SBIR Phase II; Research expertise in team performance from Univ. Central FL and George Mason Univ.
Design Interactive
Completed: Validation of multi-modal user interface design guidelines for integrating visual, auditory, and speech user interfaces
Completed: Development of initial activity & situation awareness displays and simulation software test-bed for team supervisors of time-sensitive targeting operations involving teams of unmanned vehicle operators
Technology Graduation
AWACS New Product Dev.: Spatial audio for air battle managers
Technology Image
Papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI 2005) & the Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS 2006)
Paper accepted at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ Human Systems Integration Symposium (HSIS 2007)
Research Alignment
Alignments formed with AWACS New Product Development and NCO Thrust for potential technology graduation paths X
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

3. Collaborative TST Project Overview
Project Goal
Develop technological support for futuristic unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) teams engaged in TST operations
Current Focus: Technology to Support the Team Supervisor
Future Focus: Technology to Support Operator Activity Awareness
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

4. Assisting Team Supervisors of UAV Teams
Research Goal
Develop activity awareness display technology for team supervisor of UAV team engaged in TST operations
Research Approach
Develop representative TST task to explore UAV team operations
Conduct cognitive task analysis (CTA) to generate requirements for supervisory decision support and activity awareness displays:
Implement supervisory displays in a simulated task environment
Conduct experiment to evaluate effectiveness of interface displays
Current Progress
Currently conducting user experiment (Oct-Nov 2006)
CTA led to the design of two large-screen interfaces to assist team supervision
CTA helped determine relevant activity information & level of detail at which it should be displayed
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

5. “Surveillance support for a ground convoy through a hostile region”
Evaluating the Supervisory Awareness Displays
Experimental Task Scenario: Generalized TST Team Task Scenario
“Surveillance support for a ground convoy through a hostile region”
Task Details:
UAV team consists of:
1 Mission Commander
3 UAV operators, each controlling multiple UAVs
UAVs have camera sensors only
Team must coordinate with external strike team to destroy identified threats
Experimental Design:
2 (Targets) x 2 (Operators Present) Mixed Design, repeated measures on the Targets factors
Independent Variables
Targets: low and high (i.e., # of targets the TST team has to identify and destroy)
Operators Present: present and not present (i.e., whether UAV operators are present or not)
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

6. Mission Status Display
Supervisory Activity Awareness Displays
Situation Map Display
Mission Status Display
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.

7. Students Supporting this Project
6 Undergraduate Students
2005: 2 research assistants: A. Pandey; H. Conner
2006: 2 undergraduate theses:
A. Rico, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Thesis: Mission Commander Displays in Time-Sensitive Targeting Operations
C. Furusho, visiting student from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, San Paulo, Brazil
Thesis: Application of the New Hybrid CTA Method to Requirements Generation and Design of User Interfaces for Highly Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle Systems
2006/07: 2 research assistant & 1 undergraduate thesis:
Two students visiting from Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, San Paulo, Brazil
C. Fisher, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Thesis: TBD
2 Masters Students
2006/07: 1 research assistant & 1 Masters thesis:
M. Visser, visiting from the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands
J. Wan, MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Thesis: Interruption Recovery Tool for Team Supervision in Time Sensitive Command and Control Environments
1 PhD Student
: 1 PhD dissertation:
Y. Boussemart, MIT Engineering Systems Design
Thesis: Currently being defined, but will relate to the development of objective team metrics, beginning with the adaptation of the recently developed “Tracking Resource Allocation for Cognitive Strategies” (TRACS) tool for a team setting.
Copyright © 2004 Boeing. All rights reserved.