Computer-aided fighter pilots

It is shown how an interdisciplinary team overcame technical and organizational hurdles to develop an expert system that tailors its real-time responses to a pilot´s flying style. The system, called the Pilot´s Associate (PA), besides the pilot´s inputs, required in its knowledge bases expertise from human-factors specialists to decide how the information should be displayed, from psychologists to establish benchmarks for pilot performance in combat, and from engineers to define the relevant operational characteristics that need to be monitored by the expert system. It was designed to make expert recommendations without stopping to quiz pilots during air-to-air combat. The key to the system architecture is a plan-goal graph, which describes the elements used to link a pilot´s actions, or plans, with a particular mission goal. The plan-goal graph is described, and a simple example is given to illustrate its use. The tasks of reconciling differing design requirements and of finding effective ways to communicate, both among human designers and among the software modules themselves, are discussed.<>