SOAR TECHNOLOGY, LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A12-036

Description

SoarTech proposed to enhance, integrate and operationally test Sapient, an intelligent, multi-vehicle operator control unit developed in the Sapient Phase II effort. Sapient monitors unmanned vehicle and mission activity and 1. presents the user with filtered, focused information about the mission, 2. detects and projects important events and alert the user to them, 3. automates the presentation of critical contextual information to the user 4. simplifies interactions with unmanned vehicles Sapient increases a warfighter’s span of control over a team of unmanned vehicles (both UAV and UGV) – allowing warfighters to spend less time interacting with individual robots and more time managing the broader mission. To achieve these results Sapient incorporates computational situation awareness (CSA) and smart interaction (SI). Computational SA acts as a surrogate user maintaining attention on the mission progress so that the warfighter doesn’t always have to. When opportunities and issues are observed, CSA communicates information to the warfighter via audio and context-relevant visualizations so that the warfighter can make critical control decisions. Smart Interaction further enhances the warfighter’s command by providing natural, multimodal, and efficient methods of interaction with unmanned vehicles. Together, CSA and SI provide the ability for one warfighter to control several unmanned vehicles.