TOPCRUE: Team Observational Profiling and Cue Recognition for Understanding the Environment Navy SBIR FY2011.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2011.2 Topic No.: N112-162 Topic Title: TOPCRUE: Team Observational Profiling and Cue Recognition for Understanding the Environment Proposal No.: N112-162-0818 Firm: Aptima, Inc. 12 Gill Street Suite 1400 Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 Contact: Jared Freeman Phone: (202) 552-6116 Web Site: aptima.com Abstract: Marines in the field rely heavily on their ability to survey the human landscape for potential insurgents and other individuals of interest. To support this activity, the Marines' Combat Hunter program trains "profiling," a set of skills used by military and civilian experts to read people and their interactions in complex environments. However, the Combat Hunter program has several critical limitations; it lacks throughput capacity, performance measures, and formalized team training capabilities. Aptima proposes to develop the capability to address these limitations. The Team Observational Profiling and Cue Recognition for Understanding the Environment (TOPCRUE) system will be a multi-media software system that provides Marines with training in team profiling and cue recognition (PCR). TOPCRUE will collect team performance data to diagnose skill deficiencies, provide diagnostic feedback for improving performance, and facilitate evaluations by the squad leader. These capabilities will support pre-training preparation, training evaluation, and proposed scientific research to better define the PCR skills involved in effective team profiling. In Phase I, we focus on addressing several key enablers needed for system development, including development of training requirements, performance measure development, acquisition of domain related content, and development of methods and technologies for optimizing team PCR training. Benefits: ,X Marine trainees will benefit from accessible, effective preparation for live Combat Hunter profiling training, and follow-up exercises to maintain their trained skills over time. ,X Marine and civilian trainers will benefit from the delivery of students who are better qualified and from the provision of measures that document the competence of incoming trainees. This should enable trainers to accelerate training by reducing the lectures that build basic knowledge, or deepen it by focusing on practical applications that build on basic competence. ,X Marine commanders will benefit from the availability of an assessment platform that enables them (1) to provide team-oriented profiling training at their home station or during deployment, and (2) to evaluate the impact of training on their Marines. ,X Marine owners of the Combat Hunter curriculum will benefit from the capability to evaluate the effectiveness of their existing training by using IMPACTS as a pre-/post- training assessment tool. ,X ONR, the Navy, and the Marine Corps specifically will benefit from the availability of a platform to investigate and train team perception and decision making in a variety of domains, such as IED Defeat. Return