Simulating situational awareness with User-Defined Operating Picture (UDOP) devices using rules

The Network-Centric Warfare paradigm provides Ground Soldiers in the U.S. Army with large amounts of information needed to maintain situational awareness and perform successfully in the field. Current information interfaces lack a targeted operational focus and provide a broad superset of data, which results in Ground Soldiers becoming overloaded by extraneous or non-critical information. To address this issue, the U.S. Army is developing User-Defined Operational Picture (UDOP) technology that manages incoming information to maximize Soldier effectiveness. However, many simulation-based analysis tools do not currently provide a means of modeling UDOPs and their effect on Soldier performance, and new modeling and simulation technologies are needed to address this gap. This work presents a method for modeling and simulation of simulated Soldier situational awareness in a constructive simulation based on simulated UDOP capability and known limits of human information processing. We present the modeling of UDOP capability and Soldier decision making through rules, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this approach, including verification and validation, computational performance, transition to operational UDOP devices, and ease of modeling.