Human Decision Making Performance in Degraded Network Video Conditions

Future capabilities of battle command systems and networked systems will increase Soldier situational awareness by providing access to information from various networked assets. We conducted a series of experiments at the United States Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, MD and at C4ISR On-the-move (OTM) at Ft. Dix, NJ. Based on the quality of service of battle command systems, the Soldier will be able to complete his mission objectives with a varying degree of success. Our experiments study the ability of the Soldier to identify various details within a simulated unmanned vehicle sensor feed given a range of quality of service (QoS) (by varying specific network parameters). In addition to understanding these systems from a strictly technical perspective, we are also interested in the performance from a network science perspective. This involves the consideration of the communications, information, and social/cognitive networks and their influence on situational awareness in tactical environments. Specifically, we are interested in the relationship of the Soldier’s performance, decision-making ability, and trust in the network in these environments. We identify trends in these metrics as a function of video QoS, which if characterized properly can be used to predict Soldier performance based on the QoS. Further characterization of these relationships may assist in the design of future battle command systems with the optimization of individual and collective Soldier mission performance.