In the process of developing new technologies for displaying 360° visual data supporting Local Area Awareness (LAA)
in complex environments (e.g. tactical military environments), one important, though often overlooked, area is system
evaluation. Without an accurate and reliable evaluation, it is impossible to determine which elements of the new display
are useful and which need further development. Evaluating a system properly requires two types of tests: one for testing
capabilities (e.g. given a display, what types of threats can be detected and identified?), and another for probing whether
a given display configuration is useful (e.g. will the human operator use this more complex interface appropriately in the
real world?). While established methodologies exist for the former, the latter often appears as a much less tractable
problem. This is primarily because of the difficulties with modeling the complexity of the real world in a simulated
environment. This paper presents a methodology for architecting a distributed simulation to support evaluation of a 360°
LAA display system for usefulness to human participants within virtual environments. The evaluation that leveraged the
methodology ultimately reported several unexpected results due to the effectiveness of the evaluation; for example, the
experiment discovered a much greater "keyhole effect" than expected, where participants focused almost entirely on the
forward 180°, even when presented with imagery covering the full 360°. Such results demonstrate the utility of the
methodology, particularly for developing evaluations that discover unexpected aspects of operational use in complex
environments.
Tomorrows military systems will require novel methods for assessing Soldier performance and situational awareness
(SA) in mobile operations involving mixed-initiative systems. Although new methods may augment Soldier assessments,
they may also reduce Soldier performance as a function of demand on workload, requiring concurrent performance of
mission and assessment tasks. The present paper describes a unique approach that supports assessment in environments
approximating the operational context within which future systems will be deployed. A complex distributed system was
required to emulate the operational environment. Separate computational and visualization systems provided an
environment representative of the military operational context, including a 3D urban environment with dynamic human
entities. Semi-autonomous driving was achieved with a simulated autonomous mobility system and SA was assessed
through digital reports. A military crew station mounted on a 6-DOF motion simulator was used to create the physical
environment. Cognitive state evaluation was enabled using physiological monitoring. Analyses indicated individual
differences in temporal and accuracy components when identifying key features of potential threats; i.e., comparing
Soldiers and insurgents with non-insurgent civilians. The assessment approach provided a natural, operationally-relevant
means of assessing needs of future secure mobility systems and detecting key factors affecting Soldier-system
performance as foci for future development.
KEYWORDS: High power microwaves, Data modeling, Performance modeling, Modeling and simulation, Intelligence systems, Situational awareness sensors, Systems modeling, Visualization, Computer simulations, Virtual reality
The proliferation of intelligent systems in today's military demands increased focus on the optimization of human-robot
interactions. Traditional studies in this domain involve large-scale field tests that require humans to operate semiautomated
systems under varying conditions within military-relevant scenarios. However, provided that adequate
constraints are employed, modeling and simulation can be a cost-effective alternative and supplement. The current
presentation discusses a simulation effort that was executed in parallel with a field test with Soldiers operating military
vehicles in an environment that represented key elements of the true operational context. In this study, "constructive"
human operators were designed to represent average Soldiers executing supervisory control over an intelligent ground
system. The constructive Soldiers were simulated performing the same tasks as those performed by real Soldiers during
a directly analogous field test. Exercising the models in a high-fidelity virtual environment provided predictive results
that represented actual performance in certain aspects, such as situational awareness, but diverged in others. These
findings largely reflected the quality of modeling assumptions used to design behaviors and the quality of information
available on which to articulate principles of operation. Ultimately, predictive analyses partially supported expectations,
with deficiencies explicable via Soldier surveys, experimenter observations, and previously-identified knowledge gaps.
Those applying autonomous technologies to military systems strive to enhance human-robot and robot-robot
performance. Beyond performance, the military must be concerned with local area security. Characterized as "secure
mobility", military systems must enable safe and effective terrain traversal concurrent with maintenance of situational
awareness (SA). One approach to interleaving these objectives is supervisory control, with popular options being shared
and traded control. Yet, with the scale and expense of military assets, common technical issues such as transition time
and safeguarding become critical; especially as they interact with Soldier capabilities. Study is required to enable
selection of control methods that optimize Soldier-system performance while safeguarding both individually. The current
report describes a study utilizing experimental military vehicles and simulation systems enabling teleoperation and
supervisory control. Automated triggering of SA demands was interspersed with a set of challenging driving maneuvers
in a 'teleoperation-like' context to examine the influence of supervisory control on Soldier-system performance. Results
indicated that direct application of supervisory control, while beneficial under particular demands, requires continued
development to be perceived by Soldiers as useful. Future efforts should more tightly couple the information exchanged
between the Soldier and system to overcome current challenges not addressed by standard control methods.
As the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) introduce emerging technologies and new force structures to the
battlefield, soldiers will increasingly face new challenges in workload management. The next generation warfighter will
be responsible for effectively managing robotic assets in addition to performing other missions. Studies of future
battlefield operational scenarios involving the use of automation, including the specification of existing and proposed
technologies, will provide significant insight into potential problem areas regarding soldier workload.
The US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) is currently executing an
Army technology objective program to analyze and evaluate the effect of automated technologies and their associated
control devices with respect to soldier workload. The Human-Robotic Interface (HRI) Intelligent Systems Behavior
Simulator (ISBS) is a human performance measurement simulation system that allows modelers to develop constructive
simulations of military scenarios with various deployments of interface technologies in order to evaluate operator
effectiveness. One such interface is TARDEC's Scalable Soldier-Machine Interface (SMI). The scalable SMI provides a
configurable machine interface application that is capable of adapting to several hardware platforms by recognizing the
physical space limitations of the display device.
This paper describes the integration of the ISBS and Scalable SMI applications, which will ultimately benefit both
systems. The ISBS will be able to use the Scalable SMI to visualize the behaviors of virtual soldiers performing HRI
tasks, such as route planning, and the scalable SMI will benefit from stimuli provided by the ISBS simulation
environment. The paper describes the background of each system and details of the system integration approach.
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