Jeremy Ludwig, Stottler Henke Associates, Inc.; Devin Cline, Stottler Henke Associates, Inc.; Todd Spradley, USAF (Ret); Laura Militello, Applied Decision Science; Julie Dilulio, Applied Decision Science
Keywords: Virtual assistant, artificial intelligence, space situational awareness, command and control
Abstract:
The complexity of space operations has increased dramatically in the past decade. Space has become an increasingly congested and contested environment as nations and commercial entities have become more and more reliant on space-based capabilities. Enhanced space-domain awareness will be necessary to manage these challenges, but the tools and processes available today will be insufficient for the future. For example, there is an abundance of information available to space operators, but it can be underutilized given the operational tempo and the complexity of decisions being made at vast distances and orbital speeds. As part of the DARPA Hallmark program, our objective was to develop a virtual space assistant (VIRSA) to enhance decision making in space operations by (1) filtering, searching, and synthesizing heterogeneous data (2) operating both proactively in the background and on demand (3) providing tailored assistance to operators for tasks that are time-sensitive, data-intensive, recurring, or otherwise challenging, and (4) reducing operator workload with an intuitive user interface. Our requirements necessitated that the virtual assistant be tailored to real-world operational tasks, complementary to existing capabilities, intuitive, unobtrusive, quick, reliable, and convenient.
One of the focus areas of the Phase I DARPA Hallmark program is the development and evaluation of testbeds and tools for space operations concepts. The participants include two testbeds, an ontology team, a number of tool teams, and two cognitive evaluation teams. It should be noted that this abstract presents a narrow slice of the overall program; there are other participants in the Hallmark program and additional focus areas that are outside the scope of this abstract. Two testbeds form the technological foundation of Phase I. Each of the testbeds use a distinct cloud-based technology stack to deploy tools, support inter-tool communication, and provide access to shared data. Building on the testbeds, a variety of teams developed a number of tools (including VIRSA) that visualize and analyze data to support decision-making during space operations. The tools work together in a complementary fashion to provide the full range of functionality needed on a space operations floor. A series of evaluation events allowed space operations personnel to test the Hallmark environment, using the testbeds, tools, and data to make real-time decisions during situational awareness and command and control scenarios.
One issue with developing a virtual assistant for space operations is that the functionality requested by operators is limited only by the imagination. It is also difficult to know ahead of time what tasks are going to be time-sensitive, data-intensive, recurring, or otherwise challenging in the Hallmark environment until after the tools and scenarios are developed. After generating a list of candidate features culled from Hallmark documents and discussions, we conducted a series of interdisciplinary sessions to narrow the list to a small set of features judged to have the potential to positively impact decision making and efficiency, and to be feasible within the time and resource constraints of the Hallmark program. Two decision science researchers, one former space operator, and two software developers independently identified 5 features from the list that they believed were feasible and would have a positive impact. The team met to discuss each participants top choices. Using a consensus based approach, we discussed until the group reached consensus on a small set of top choices. The team then met a second time to refine the list further, identifying two options that would provide a realistic demonstration of the potential value of VIRSA, and would also provide a foundation for future, more sophisticated features.
Two features became the focus of development and demonstration efforts. RSO Summary: at-a-glance summary of key information about a resident space object. Operators can use this information to quickly assess a situation, solve problems in the face of unexpected events, dynamically re-plan, and anticipate implications of potential courses of action. Keyword Search: addresses the need to perform efficient searches across many tools and data sources (currently a pain point for operators).
The evaluation events carried out by the cognitive evaluation teams assessed the performance of the Hallmark environment every three months and generated specific recommendations. To date, five evaluation events have been performed. The second through fifth evaluation events featured operators with real-world expertise and experience. Their expertise was matched against increasingly complex scenarios and an increasingly capable Hallmark environment. The feedback from VIRSA from the events were confirmation of the utility of the Summary and Keyword search results provided by VIRSA along with a list of requests to make these features even more useful. The cognitive evaluation teams also identified specific tasks that an assistant should be able to perform within the Hallmark environment beyond simple search, which are being addressed in Phase II of the Hallmark program.
VIRSA illustrates concrete features that a virtual assistant could use to improve decision-making on the space operations floor. Within the context of the Hallmark environment, we have identified the highest impact initial features, evaluated these features in a series of week-long evaluation events, and identified additional assistant functionality to be developed during Phase II of the program.
Date of Conference: September 17-20, 2019
Track: Space Situational Awareness