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    The Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System - Interface

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    The Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System_ Interface

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    The Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System - Interface

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    ‘The Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System: Interface Design Project, tucent Team: Julie Besselman, Meredith Logsdon, Brian Whisnant, Timothy Yeweic Faculty debvivor Dx. Stephanie Guerlain, Department of Systems and Information Engineering Graduate Student Advisor: Robert Willis, M.S. Student, Department of Systems and Information Engineering Client Achisors: Bruce Copeland, Wayne Harman, Bob Athay, and Alan Thomas ‘Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren, VA. E-mail HarmanWI @nswe.navy.mil KEYWORDS: Cruise missile, interface design, situational awareness, cognitive task analysis, and usability testing. ABSTRACT Scheduled for deployment in 2003, the ‘Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile represents a «qualitative leap forward in long-range ‘smart” ‘weapon technology. The weapons control officer will be able to retarget these missiles ‘uring flight by directing the missiles to strike time-critical, emergent targets within minutes of their appearance, Other new capabilities include battle damage assessment and the ‘capacity to plan missions onboard the launching ship or submarine, further nereasing the flexibility of this new weapons ‘The objective of our Capstone team was to design a prototype of the computer interface that an operator of such a system would use to ‘monitor and contol the eruise missiles. We conducted extensive research into situational awareness and interface design techniques as, ‘we formated our list of finetional requirements and developed our interface ‘Based on our design, we created aa interactive ‘computer program that We used to conduct usability testing on 20 subjects from a systems engineering graduate class, The program. simulates a battle situation, and the subjects interacted with the interface to gather nformation about what was happening and to ‘make decisions based on that information. We ‘modified several variables during each hous- Jong test, including changing the total number of missiles and targets on the sereen at once as ‘well as turning on and off a feature that graphically displayed the range of each aisle. Though the focus of our project was the development of the interface and the design of our usability test, we were able to draw some ‘valuable conclusions from our test data, Our work is intended to be a frst iteration, and the test results should be used to make improvements to both the interface and the testing method itself INTRODUCTION The goal of this Capstone project was to develop and test an interactive proterype of a ‘weapon control system interface forthe new Tactical Tomahawk eruise missile, Unlike the current missiles, which operators program before launch, the next generation Tactical Tomahawk wil have retargeting capability giving it the ability to loiter in enemy territory and then quickly strike an emergent target wherever it may appear. The implementation ofthis tactical retargeting feature will not be complete until the interface for operating its control system has been established, designed, and built. The ‘Navy has contracted Lockheed Martin to build ‘the software applications that will connect the suissiles tothe control system guidance system, and other subsystems (Will ‘As a separate venture, the task of this Capstone team was to determine how to best design a weapons control system interface for the Tactical Tomahawk emise missile. The goals of this project were to: Q Design, develop and test interface concepts for the US Navy's Tactical ‘Tomahawk cruise missile operator interface Q Provide specific display secommendations to the Naval Surface Warfare Center —Dahlgven Division (the client) for use in future contracted TTWCS user-interface development. 000). Recommend the appropriate level of ‘sutomation to minimize mission ‘execution time while maximizing ‘operator situational awareness BACKGROUND ‘The Tomahawk eruise missile saw action for the first time in 1991 in Operation Desert Stomn, It immediately proved itself as an effective tool for precise, deep strike missions ‘and has since seen action in regional conflicts in Afghanistan, Sudan, and Serbia Sanders, 2000: “UE. Navy." 2000) Fig. 14 Tomahawk in fight hutp:/Avunw.raxtheon.com) Current Tomahawk missiles are programmed and launched with a predetermined flight path and target, The ‘missile can be launched from either a ship or a submarine and has a range of over 800 nautical miles (U.S. Navy.” 2000). Once over land, its ‘guidance system computer compares the surrounding terrain with the maps in its ‘memory to keep the missile on the correct course (See Fig. 1). After launch, the operator ccaunot control the missile and only receives nformation via the Tomahawk In-flight Position Reporting System (ORD, 1998). ‘The new Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System (TTWCS). which is not yet operational, will improve upon this successful design by adding some powerful capabilites ‘The new missile will have the ability to be retargeted while in fight, making it capable of striking an emergent target of opportunity that ‘may not even appear unl the missile is actually aitborne. The operator will be able to keep missiles in “loiter” pattems over enemy territory unfil emergent targets appear, giving the Navy the power to strike an emergent target within minutes of its initial appearance. twill be possible for the operator to plan iissions fiom the launch platform. Presently, sission plans are created at headquarters in Norfolk, VA or Pearl Harbor, HI, and then ‘transmitted to the ship or submarine. In addition. the new missile will periodically relay missile status details to the weapons systems operator, giving him or her the information required to effectively control the snissiles in real time (Sanders, 2000). ‘With its increased eapabilities. the proposed system places much greater responsibility on the weapons systems officer controlling the missiles. The system must provide the operator with a wide range of snformation, including information on the position, range, and warhead of each missile as well as current and projected positions for the different types of targets. These will all be factors needed to decide which missile should be assigned to which target and when. The system creates the need for a weapons control interface that will allow the weapons officer to comprehend the complex arena of combat and make decisions quickly and effectively. The existing hardware, a workstation with a keyboard, trackball, and two 19” monitors ‘will be used with the new missile, and we have designed ous interface accordingly. Our Capstone team has done the necessary research, design, and testing to develop an interactive interface prototype that answers the question: how can a single interface be created that allows the Weapons control officer to operate these missiles effectively? RELEVANT THEORY Although no standard guideline exists for interface design, methodologies for human- computer interface design are often based on principles from several fields of study including situational awareness and cognitive seience. These general principles are helpful for understanding the basis of many of the TIWCS interface design decisions, Situational Awareness Situational awareness (SA) is a term, originally used only by the aircraft community to represent a pilot's ability to correctly perceive the state of his environment while utilizing flight automation tools. However, SA has become a field of study that pertains to many different systems with varying levels of automation. Situational awareness is defined as “the perception of elements in a [dynamic environment) the comprehension of thei meaning, and the projection of their status in ‘the near future”(Endsley, 1995). This is of particular concer to automated, dynamic systems because the removal of operators from, physical contact with the process may diminish the accuracy of their perceived system-state [Moray in Endsley article]. In ‘ther words, as the system automates or nernalizes some of the operator's tasks, the ‘operator loses touch with what is happening ‘within the system, Endsley believes that “at a minimum, the [interface] design process should include steps to ensure that needed information is abways present regarding the state of antomation and the state of the parameters being monitored in a clear, easily interpreted format.” Itis important to note that the automation of some tasks can benefit system performance by decreasing the mental workload on the human ‘operator. The key issue (as it pertains to nterface design) is to make sensible choices regarding the allocation of functions between the human operator and computer automation, Cognitive Tasks Analysis Cognitive Task Analysis is a relatively new branch of applied psychology that has recently been utilized in the development of expert systems, system traning, expert ae 2S een me ee a Message Launching Default Target Display Area submarine Fig. 5—Dynamie and mieractive protorype sereenshot USABILITY TESTING ‘The final phase of the project was to conduct usability testing of the interface design. The subjects were systems engineering ‘eraduate students, and received two 75-minute {raining sessions to familiarize themselves ‘with the system. During testing. the subjects monitored and redirected the aitborne missiles, responding to message requests and changes the tactical environment. We varied two major aspects of the scenario with different subjects: the aumber of objects on the screen at once (missiles and targets) and the presence or absence of ‘coverage zones’ (a circle that was attached to the onsereen missile as it lew representing the area that it could cover in a ziven period of time). When an emergent target appenred. we also varied the number of iissiles that were candidates for attacking the new target. Each scenario had either 10 of 20 objects, and only half included the coverage zone feature. A spilt plot experimental design ‘was followed. sueh that different combinations of these variables were assembled and given to ‘each subject in such a way that statistical conclusions could be dravn from the results, ‘The hypotheses for the tests were that response time and accuracy would suffer when more objects were present, and situational awareness ‘would increase with the presence of the coverage zones due tothe utility of the funetion. ‘There were eight different possible test scenarios, each incorporating a different

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