A smarter common operational picture: The application of abstraction hierarchies to naval command and control

The last decade shows significant steps in connecting military command and control systems from different defense forces optimizing joint and combined operations. However, a Common Operational Picture (COP) that provides all actors with sufficient, accurate, and timely information is still an elusive target. Additional and more abstract information is required to comprehend the situation better, including a representation of the friendly, neutral and hostile courses of action and the roles of units therein. A starting point for a more advanced COP is work by Rasmussen and Vicente on abstraction decomposition spaces. While working with complex socio-technical systems, people construct a mental model with several levels of abstraction allowing humans to diagnose unexpected behavior and problems faster and better. This paper describes a multi-level information model that we intend to use as the framework for a COP. A task analysis has led to the identification of input and output of command and control processes that have been used to populate the information model. Using various warfare scenarios, discussions with naval personnel were used to validate the model. Experiments with naval personnel are planned for the future in order to evaluate the effects on performance, situational awareness, and coordination with other parties.MediamaticsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc