Plan-Driven Fusion: Shaping the Situation Awareness Process using Empirical Plan Data

Historically, in a tactical C4ISR environment, information fusion processing and plan understanding and execution monitoring have been performed without regard to one another. In particular, plan execution monitoring assumes that an accurate "world state" is available, while information fusion processing assumes that "operational context" is available. Because operational context allows information fusion to develop an accurate representation of world state, and world state is the basis from which plan execution monitoring assesses the status of plans, a loose coupling between information fusion and plan understanding and execution monitoring results in less-than-optimal situational awareness for a commander. Leveraging plan under standing and levels 1-4 information fusion techniques, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM ATL) has developed a concept design and prototype, plan-driven fusion, which enables iterative, closed-loop cooperation between planning and fusion components within a C4ISR environment