Studies and Application of Adaptive Decision Aiding in Anti-Submarine Warfare

This report describes the results of research directed toward the application and demonstration of Adaptive Decision Aiding (ADA) in anti- submarine warfare (ASW). The aim of the adaptive decision aid is to enhance the performance of the Tactical Coordination Officer (TACCO) aboard the Navy P-3 aircraft the sonobuoy pattern selection phase of airborne ASW tactics through interactive decision aiding software. The software used adaptive techniques to 'capture' a TACCO's decision making strategies and then recommends future actions on the basis of objective criteria and learned objective values. Empirical evaluation results have shown that: (1) The methodology of adaptive decision aiding can effectively be transferred to the task domain of tactical decisions; (2) It is feasible to implement and integrate decision aids into existing TACCO decision task structure and P-3 operational computer hardware; and (3) The ADA receives good acceptance from TACCO instructors. This report describes the technical details of the ADA system and its integration into an existing P-3C simulator at the Naval Air Development Center. The report reviews the theoretical structure of the adaptive decision aiding model and presents a brief description in decision analysis in terms of the TACCO tracking decision tasks. A description of the P-3C ADA software is given.