Unmanned vehicles (UVs) are transforming the submarine 0x8D s collection and communication capabilities. However, the user tasks needed to employ UVs are not seamlessly integrated into existing submarine tasks and personnel assignments. Further, submarines will have to flexibly coordinate UV employment with multiple partners. These complex missions will need support for multi-participant, multi-perspective decision-making. The objective of this proposal is to take a user-centered design and systems engineering approach, bringing domain expertise and relevant scientific concepts to develop a decision aid called MASTS (Multi-perspective ASsessments and Tasking for Submarines). MASTS consists of three integrated elements: a CONOPS for sub-UV task integration, a task allocation model, and a collaborative workspace to coordinate multiple perspectives. These elements seamlessly weave UV tasking onto subs, reduce knowledge fragmentation and support team situation awareness, and structure and coordinate multi-perspective decision-making. Together, these elements are anticipated to improve command decision making. The proposal team is well-positioned with relevant expertise, related sub-UV CONOPS work, domain familiarity and access to experts, extensive operational evaluation experience, and access to multiple promising transition avenues. With this approach, a solution will be developed that is scientifically principled, grounded in the real needs of operational users, and aligned with the transition process and timeline.
Benefit: The output of this research will be: a concept of operations for integrating UVs into submarines, an iterative model for coordinating and assigning tasks, and a process and supporting user interface concepts for multi-participant, multi-perspective decision making. MASTS 0x8D integrated elements are anticipated to benefit users and decision makers in several ways, including (1) improving command decision making, (2) enhancing team collaboration by sharing, leveraging, and honoring multiple perspectives, and (3) facilitating performance by helping users arrive at more robust operational plans. At a time of enormous national interest and investment in unmanned system technology and the increased demand for distributed team coordination, the MASTS solution has significant potential commercial value in both the Government and the private sector. Within the Government, there are multiple promising transition avenues for MASTS concepts to support the needs of the submarine acquisition community and the tactical development squadrons. To facilitate this transition, the development timeline for MASTS aligns with timelines and needs of these customers. MASTS also aligns with and complements other ongoing ONR research efforts to support the development of the submarine combat system. For non-DoD civil transition opportunities, MASTS concepts can improve efficiency of operations that involve personnel from multiple organizations in distributed locations. Potential commercial transition opportunities include Business Intelligence software developers, who could use concepts from the MASTS decision aid as part of their analytic tools.
Keywords: submarine decision-making, submarine decision-making, unmanned vehicle integration, Multi-perspective decision support, computational model
