APTIMA INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: AF151-048

Description

ABSTRACT:Operators and analysts in modern Air and Space Operations Centers (AOC) must gather and synthesize information from a variety of disconnected sources, including networks, in order to make effective decisions in a complex, distributed operations environment. Current approaches struggle to integrate air, space, and cyber resources in an effective and timely manner. We propose the Tailored Augmentation Leveraging Integrated Information (TALII) system, an adaptive visual analytics tool that leverages context-aware course of action (COA) recommendation and perceptually grounded cyber-spatial visualization design to support situation awareness and efficient decision-making in the future AOC. TALII integrates multiple sources of incoming information into a context engine that maintains awareness of the current mission state and the state of incoming data. This model of context is then combined with perceptually-driven design principles to tailor a visual analytics interface for users in the AOC and distributed users that highlights important information and selects appropriate level of detail to maintain situation awareness. COA visualization and recommendation helps users make faster and more effective decisions under changing conditions.BENEFIT:TALII employs adaptive, context-aware visual analytics that use integrated information structures and COA recommendations to enable faster decision speeds under highly dynamic conditions. It will allow for greater integration of currently separate components of air, space, and cyber operations so that users in AOCs can identify patterns that are not currently visible. By employing a context model that maintains information on data uncertainty and disruptions, TALII can be more resilient to network attacks and conflicting information streams. Commercial applications of visual analytics tools are growing rapidly as data size and complexity increases across domains. At the same time, there are more situations in which decision-makers must act on this data in real time. Such large-scale streaming data analysis is increasingly important to intelligence analysis, financial analytics, and social media analytics. TALII will accelerate decision-making by helping users become more proactive in responding to unexpected events.