SBIR-STTR Award

Achieving operational availability of mission systems is challenging for naval shipboard maintainers, who analyze large amounts of maintenance data to determine how and when to address equipment repair and replacement needs. Current data is available through a set of disparate sources that insufficiently portray the criticality of correcting the malfunction or reveal interrelationships and overall operational impacts. This makes it difficult to efficiently and effectively select, prioritize, and schedule future maintenance activities. To address this, we propose to design and demonstrate a Blended Advanced Decision GUI Environment for Reasoning Support (BADGERS). The BADGERS decision-support system (DSS) will enable shipboard maintainers to analyze system status and predicted malfunctions, evaluate high-level mission impacts, and efficiently make maintenance decisions through intuitive and innovative data visualizations. This system will provide maintainers with an integrated workspace that provides observability for fixing the issue through rule-based maintenance knowledge, as well as ecological graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to assess the operational impacts and validate root causes of predicted system failures. We will take an iterative Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) approach and presented within a software Prototyping and Demonstration Environment (PDE) to allow for rapid integration to Navy systems.

Benefit:
We expect the fully developed BADGERS integrated workspace, rule-based reasoning and validation service, and ecological maintenance GUI to have immediate and tangible benefits across both Government and commercial applications. Government applications include the development of decision-support systems that reduce the workload and/or training requirements for maintenance operators for a variety of Navy systems, such as those envisioned for the Aegis Weapon System (AWS). Commercial applications include improved coordinated spatial, temporal, and relational visualization capabilities for a broad variety of web-based applications developed through Charles River Analytics Medusa application framework.

Keywords:
maintenance visualizations, maintenance visualizations, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Decision Support System (DSS), Ecological Interface Design (EID), Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE), integrated workspace, rule-based knowledge

Achieving operational availability of mission systems is challenging for naval shipboard maintainers, who analyze large amounts of maintenance data to address equipment repair and replacement. Currently, data is available through disparate sources that insufficiently portray the criticality of correcting the malfunction or reveal interrelationships and overall operational impacts. To address this, we propose to design and demonstrate a Blended Advanced Decision GUI Environment for Reasoning Support (BADGERS). The BADGERS decision-support system (DSS) will enable shipboard maintainers to rapidly analyze system status and predicted malfunctions, evaluate high-level mission impacts, and efficiently make maintenance decisions through intuitive and innovative data visualizations. Under the proposed Phase II BADGERS effort, we will first expand prior analyses to identify the requirements for effective support tools for efficient maintenance operations. As part of this effort, we will assess current and emerging tools and maintenance systems. Next, we will leverage the outputs of this analysis to refine the design of BADGERS ecological visualization and integrated workspace concepts. Finally, we will expand the breadth and depth of our current prototypes and integrate these with representative Navy maintenance technologies. We will use these prototypes to demonstrate and evaluate our approach and to deeply explore the complexities of maintenance operations.

Benefit:
We expect the fully developed BADGERS integrated workspace, rule-based reasoning and validation service, and ecological maintenance graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to have immediate and tangible benefits across both Government and commercial applications. Government applications include the development of decision-support systems that reduce the workload for maintenance operators. Commercial applications include improved coordinated visualization capabilities developed through Charles River Analytics Medusa web application framework.

Keywords:
integrated workspace, Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE), Graphical User Interface (GUI), Ecological Interface Design (EID), Decision Support System (DSS), maintenance visualizations, rule-based knowledge