Above Water Warfare Command and Control

Need

Design a human-system interface to a computerized decision support system that is intended to be placed aboard the Canadian Patrol Frigates for the support of Above-Water Warfare (AWW) Command and Control (C2).

Idea

Based on an analysis of the key, abstract functions of chipboard air defense, the entire Concept of Operation was redesigned for optimal decision making. The AWW C2 control room design re-assigned operator roles to be centered around two main functions: threat-evaluation and weapon management. The room design mimics this functional split and provides adequate decision support for both functions. Operators have individual display components that give them detailed information. The Group Display components display status overview information for each function. This helps each team know the progress and status of the other team. Finally, the Anomaly Display component displays information for attention direction.

Benefit

The concept described here, along with tailored CSE-based decision support visualizations, revolutionized the command and control processes for AWW. The shared representations on the large Group View components provided at-a-glance status information for any operator in the room. The commander could immediately know the state of the environment based on the information shown on those screens. Additionally, the individual decision support visualizations for the individual users framed information to the users in such a way that it makes decision-making about threat intentions and weapon assignments effortless, where prior to this design operators would furiously write on post-it notes in order to transform their data into useful information. Finally, the Anomaly Display component pushes information to the user in a non-obtrusive way, so that it can be informative yet non-obtrusive when the user is involved in the fight.