Tactical Situation Assessment Technologies (TSAT)

In distributed command and control (C₂), the primary tool for consistency in operational situational assessment (SA) is the common operational picture(COP) and continuous text updates that define relevant objects, their relationships, and their intent. Context often resides in the warfighterpsilas "conversation," or in manual hand gestures in the battlefield. The primary tactical method for capturing this information resides in text chat and voice communications. There is a primary reliance on text chat (due to its persistence) in hostile tactical environments with little to inform its practice or its improvement. We focus on three areas to improve the ability to communicate SA context by (1) developing a computational approach to acquiring chat SA themes from unstructured text; (2) exploiting the use of icons, images, and symbols in developing an SA language; and (3) prototyping a new technology of inscription with the development of data-generating gloves.