John Ianni, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL); Carolyn Sheaff, AFRL Information Directorate; Peter Rocci, AFRL Information Directorate; Gina Thomas, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL); Apoorva Bhopale, AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate
Keywords: Human-computer interfaces, automated indications and warnings, space threats
Abstract:
This paper outlines an AFRL research effort that explored the utility of a headline-based human-computer interface (HCI) for command and control (C2) systems.? The concept, originally called Commanders Portal (later C Portal), was inspired by Air Force space leadership, who noted that C2 systems focus on analysts needs and do not assemble and present information in a consolidated, actionable way.? The C Portal research, therefore, collects information about potential threats, including information from automated indications and warnings (I&W) tools, calculates priority scores based on pre-defined criteria and displays the results with headlines scaled to those scores along with linkages to supporting information.
C Portal development began with a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project that was further refined as part of the Space C2 Joint Emergent Operational Need (JEON) resulting in a variant of the DARPA technology transitioning to the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).? While the original focus of C Portal was space C2, starting in 2020, multiple AFRL directorates began exploring the concepts use in Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) whose operators, arguably, have a greater need to amalgamate information to manage their missions.? These operators typically have less depth of knowledge of the individual domains than single-domain operators such as those focused on space or cyber so the headlines avoided domain-specific jargon.
The JADC2 research discussed in this paper leverages three different I&W tools as sources to identify potential threats and fuses the results using priority scoring.? The overarching criteria of impact, urgency, and certainty were scored and combined to a single priority score that was then used to scale the size of the headlines and graphic.
C2 systems are typically a collection of tools but seldom make it easy to grasp the overall message.? Using newspaper-like headlines with graphics to convey complex situations seems to have merit in addressing this issue.? Virtually no training is required to recognize this time-proven approach to prioritizing stories using scaled headlines and graphics.? The large headlines are particularly suited for shared displays that often cram too much information using undersized fonts.
Regarding priority scoring criteria, impact, urgency, and certainty seemingly need to be part of the equation.? However, in performing this research, we felt that the ability to respond in a timely manner should also be represented. If one is behind in planning the response to a known threat, then the priority of that threat should be elevated so that leadership may address the situation.
There are some challenges that should be noted in implementing this concept as an enterprise system.? The original goal was to have automated threat detection tools that provide direct feeds to the displayed headlines.? While feasible without a human-in-the-loop, analysts understandably insisted on the ability to review automated priority calculations for accuracy and possibly make adjustments before publishing to the enterprise especially when leadership could be making decisions based on the headlines.
The selection of optimal wording and useful graphics for the headlines was another challenge.? Further research would be beneficial to determine how best to automatically create short but meaningful headlines using natural language generation.? The current method works but is not always as meaningful as it could be.? Graphics specific to the situation would ideally be passed by the originating I&W tools, but a library of icons should also be available to be used as needed. Additionally, icons may be presented in conjunction with flags of the countries involved.?
Another challenge was ingesting the varying formats of data sent by the I&W tools.? Each tool provides detailed, domain-specific information that needs to be interpreted and scored in conjunction with the information from the other tools.? Additionally, while there are means for storing such information such as the Unified Date Library, a smarter broker of the information would be beneficial to the overall concept.
Combining and displaying the information leads us to the challenge of priority scoring.? Many leaders have indicated that they would prefer to have a best guess of the priority of a situation than no indication of priority so long as they can evaluate the reasoning behind the estimation.? However, it is difficult to determine how multi-domain threats should be ordered.? Sometimes it may seem like comparing apples and oranges as in determining whether a certain cyber threat is greater than a specific space threat.? Regardless, the urgency of response should arguably play a major role in priority scoring.? Additionally, threats with potentially major impacts should be given more weight but may be addressed later than an urgent threat with a lesser impact.
The paper elaborates on progress made addressing these challenges on the research effort and presents questions to be addressed by future research.
Date of Conference: September 14-17, 2021
Track: SSA/SDA