Multiple hypothesis situation analysis support system prototype

Uncertainty makes the analysis of even simple situations difficult. It forces intelligence analysts to formulate and manage hypotheses during the construction of explicit representations of real world situations. This may quickly become overwhelming. To provide better support to the intelligence staff, the main concepts behind multiple hypothesis tracking have been revisited to develop a proof-of-concept prototype of a multiple hypothesis situation analysis (MHSA) support system. A key objective is to showcase the potential and utility of MHSA. It has thus been conceived to allow users, developers, and managers to better understand each and every aspect of the MHSA process, which isn´t like a Bayesian Net. This paper discusses a situation modeling graphical language, the interdependency and uncertainty about the situation model components, the hypothesis tree data structure used to keep track of the uncertainty, different issues regarding the hypothesis tree, hypothesis scoring, and user interactions with the MHSA support system prototype.