Unmanned systems operators are frequently required to adjust their plans in response to unexpected events and changes in the battlespace. Advances in information infrastructure and related technologies provide new opportunities for the development of human-machine collaborative systems to support decision-making in this context. The objective of this effort is to develop an automated replanning tool that will enable unmanned system operators to maintain situation awareness when unexpected events occur and respond to these events in a manner that maintains adequate deconfliction with other assets while maintaining mission effectiveness. This project expands and leverages previous research in air operations planning to produce an automated replanning tool for unmanned systems operators that contains a complete representation of the goals and constraints of the battlespace and provides a common framework for a successful collaboration between the human and machine to enable successful systems operations. The resulting system will support functions ranging from maintaining situation awareness of the battlespace, conducting dynamic replanning, developing / selecting alternative plans, support for the control of multiple assets, and helping an operator follow the rules and procedures governing the battlespace .
Benefit: This tool will dramatically improve the speed, quality, and safety of unmanned systems supervisory control in dynamic, time-critical conditions by providing the human user with previously unavailable insights into battlespace awareness and offloading low-level replanning tasks to a software agent. This tool will have direct applicability in any context where rapid replanning in response to unexpected events in a mission environment is required, whether the mission is associated with military or commercial/civilian goals.
Keywords: Human-Machine Collaboration, Human-Machine Collaboration, Unmanned Systems, decision support tool, airspace management., collaborative systems, Mission Replanning, Supervisory control, Graphical User Interface
