A Man-in-the-Loop Support Concept for Military Ambush Threat-Assessment Based on Reconnaissance Reports
Abstract
On all levels of the military command hierarchy there is a strong demand for support through the automated processing of reconnaissance reports. This is especially true for information processing and situational assessment, which use inference and deduction based on report information. Developments in computer-based decision support significantly expand the capability of tactical situational display programs. This paper presents some preconditions for the improvement of computer support and then illustrates the automated processing of report information using a military ambush situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This is an example of an unconventional type of military operation, which are complex in prearrangement and typically clandestine in nature. Their timely recognition by human intelligence information is a difficult task, one that is very much dependent on human expertise. The author's concept for threat assessment is based on a two-stage, man in-the-loop procedure that is dependent on this expertise. Its main advantage is the incorporation of absent, but possibly significant, situational context information on a trial-and-error base. The major ideas were tested by an ability assessment tool for ambush attacks. The paper examines the following topics: information fusion, knowledge-based data fusion templates, and the man-in-the-loop concept; modeling the information; the template method, which is a logic-based pattern recognition technique; factors in the assessing the situational context; knowledge data base contents; rules, doctrines, and military default behavior; background information on the ambush scenario in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and the simulation of the scenario and its results. Fourteen briefing charts summarize the presentation. (6 figures, 31 refs.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA428652
Entities
People
- Frank P. Lorenz
- Joachim Biermann