Plan Understanding for Mixed-initiative control of Autonomous systems (PUMA) Navy STTR FY2005 Sol No.: Navy STTR FY2005 Topic No.: N05-T017 Topic Title: Plan Understanding for Mixed-initiative control of Autonomous systems (PUMA) Proposal No.: N054-017-0138 Firm: Charles River Analytics Inc. 625 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138-4555 Contact: Karen Harper Phone: (617) 491-3474 Web Site: www.cra.com Abstract: Future naval operations in the littoral environment will make use of unmanned vehicles to support a range of operations, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and mine warfare. Many challenges that arise in pursuing such capabilities are rooted in the need for effective communication between human operators and autonomous mission planning/execution systems, such that the human operator can clearly and rapidly understand mission plans generated by autonomous systems, and interact with those systems decisively. To address this need, we propose an iterative design, development, and evaluation process focused on Plan Understanding for Mixed-initiative control of Autonomous systems (PUMA). Our technical approach has three components: 1) a suite of advanced visualization tools supporting intuitive interactions between operator and autonomous systems; 2) an agent-based computational plan analysis module that provides cognitively congruent semantic overlays on top of system-generated plan descriptions to better enable rapid human understanding; and 3) enhanced mixed-initiative interaction mechanisms that support the operator's role as mission monitor in a manner that does not degrade situation awareness nor introduce cognitive overload. Finally, we propose to employ a structured technology evaluation process based on cognitive walkthroughs of developing PUMA features by subject matter experts. Benefits: We expect the full-scope PUMA system to have immediate and tangible benefit in both Homeland Security and law enforcement applications. Current domestic security concerns, especially in light of the war on terror (WOT) have increased US Congressional interest in the application of unmanned vehicles to the important issue of border security. The diverse information platforms currently employed in border security, combined with a path forward that integrates unmanned vehicles, creates an excellent opportunity to apply the proposed PUMA capabilities to support integrated manned and unmanned border surveillance operations. Outside of potential government applications, we also plan to focus our commercialization effort on the enhancement of our Intelligent Agent Toolkit (IAT) product via the incorporation of routines for agent-based plan analysis and visualization tools from the proposed PUMA system. Return