AugCogifying the Army’s Future Warfighter

The U.S. Army wants to ensure that the Future Force Warrior (FFW) will see first, understand first, act first and finish decisively as the means to tactical success. The Army of the future conceives of small combat units with netted communications enhanced with information from distributed and fused sensors, tactical intelligent assets enabling increased situation assessment, and on-the-move planning (FFW, 2004). The increase in information flow won’t come without a cost, however. Information management will be a key aspect of this distributed system. The availability of such technologies as Augmented Cognition (AugCog), will allow the system to be tailored to the situational and cognitive needs of the warfighter. This paper describes an example of AugCog technology applied to a Communications System. 1 The U.S. Army Transformation The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has embarked on a process of change called Transformation to create a highly responsive, networked, joint force capable of making swift decisions at all levels and maintaining overwhelming superiority in any battle space (Parmentola, 2004). In response the U.S. Army is shaping its Future Force to be smaller, lighter, faster, and smarter than its predecessor. The network will be characterized by a network of humans collaborating through a system of C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) technologies. Evidence of the Army Transformation could already be seen in the Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Some of the most visible and valuable benefits were seen in the speed of operations enabling reduction in the time to plan missions, make decisions, and coordinate and move large groups of soldiers. What was created was a more dynamic and adaptive operation built on the collective capabilities of all the participants. Unprecedented levels of integration took place among the air, naval and land forces. Stone (2003) reports, for instance, that in the middle of Afghanistan special operations soldiers could link with a Navy F-14 or link with a B-52 to pursue a target. “Special Forces on the ground have taken 19 century horse cavalry, combined it with 50-year-old B-52 bombers, and, using modern satellite communications, have produced truly 21 century capability,” is a perfect example of the effect of the Transformation (Wolfowitz, 2002). The wars in Iraq offered an opportunity to examine the direct effect of the Army Transformation. Although there are many similarities between Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom which were both conducted in the Middle East with similar objectives, to liberate Kuwait or Iraq, with similar successful results, the similarities stop there. In the time between the two wars, the Transformation was enacted, enabling operations to be conducted with substantially fewer troops (540,000 vs. 100,000 ground forces) and resulted in fewer casualties due to fratricide (Keaney & Cohen, 1993; Rumsfeld, 2003; Krepinevich, 2003). The second Gulf War used additional capabilities in Blue Force (friendly force) tracking, GPS technologies and tactical situation displays versus relying heavily on voice transmission. General Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, exploited the effectiveness that small units on the ground can have when supported by airpower. Franks recognized that linking intelligence operations with military operations was a very powerful tool for both intelligence and operational purposes (Barnes, 2003). One of the most highly publicized events, the capture of Saddam Hussein, was enabled due to the rapid intelligence gathering, network structure and high-speed decision making (Stone, 2003). One of the core capabilities of the Transformation is the availability of netted communications enabling information sharing and real-time collaboration enhancing the kind of situational understanding that drives decisive actions. Just as was seen in Operation Iraq Freedom, FFW will be dependent on the Army command covering more area with fewer warfighters. The Future Force Warrior will have unparalleled connectivity to build situation awareness conceivably right down to the individual soldier. Part of the success will be dependent on the individual warfighter’s ability to sort through the vast array of continuous information flow afforded by a full range of netted communications. 2 How Augmented Cognition can Support the Warfighter As part of the FFW program, the Honeywell Augmented Cognition (AugCog) team is developing warfighting concepts that could substantially increase the combat effectiveness of infantry small combat units. The objective is to enhance human performance and improve survivability through more effective information management. This can only be done if we improve the overall situation awareness from the top of the command down to the adaptable small units and individual soldiers. The Honeywell AugCog team has developed a set of cognitive measures based on real-time neuro-physiological and physiological measurements of the human operator. The capability to assess cognitive state by determining how resources are being allocated also provides the opportunity to modify the soldier’s current task environment by driving adaptive strategies to mitigate information processing bottlenecks. The end result can be the appropriate allocation of attention to the right information at the right time, which is important to FFW because it directly affects two cornerstone technology thrusts within the FFW program: netted communications and collaborative situation awareness. Early in the program, task analysis interviews concerning existing military operations identified factors that could negatively impact communications efficacy. In one such interview was with a former Army commander from the Vietnam War. The commander reviewed the breakdowns and chaos that can ensue during the execution of a raid. In this famous raid, known as the Son Tay Raid -a mission to rescue American prisoners of war, the commander recalled the inability to hear and focus on commands once they landed at the site (D. Turner, personal interview, September 19, 2003). Even with the highly rehearsed mission, many things went wrong that day from the breakdown intelligence to the lack of the ability to communicate between teams and the ground force commander. Though the mission was not successful (i.e., the POWs were not rescued), the highly skilled units managed to fight off the enemy without a single causality to their units. The raid highlighted the need to improve the suboptimal method of communications because the soldiers and commanders were intensely focused on the tasks at hand. This need will only intensify for the Future Force Warrior, who will be inundated with information through visual displays and verbal communications, particularly during mission execution. Adding to the challenge is the requirement to cover more ground with fewer troops; these warfighters will be more reliant than ever on the communications and digital information imposed by the additional NLOS (non-line of sight) operations. 3 A new kind of information management The research described in this paper is aimed at validating the applicability of established non-invasive neurophysiological and physiological state detection techniques during dismounted soldier combat operations. The system takes as input the soldier’s cognitive state and alters information flow and modality of presentation. The incoming information is managed by scheduling the communications to be received by the soldier at the most optimal period, offloading information or task assignments to automation when the soldier is overwhelmed, and providing information in multiple modalities (audio, visual, tactile) to ensure reception and improve comprehension. High task load conditions prompt the automation to defer all but the highest priority information, offload tasks, or change the modality of information presentation; whereas low task load conditions that lead to subsequent cognitive disengagement from the task, indicates an appropriate time for interruption to prompt greater levels of soldier participation in on-going tasks. Without these augmentations the soldier can become overloaded with information having to decide when and where to focus attention among the myriad of high priority communications and high priority tasks. By adapting the soldier’s workspace to his or her cognitive state, overall joint human-automation performance can be improved.