An Optimal Adaptive Task Allocation Strategy for Surface Electronic Warfare

Recent technical advances in surface electronic warfare (EW) have resulted in a major unintended consequence: the EW operator has become inundated with significantly more emitters to identify and monitor, along with numerous additional tasks, some of them formerly performed by the EW supervisor. Consequently, the EW operator is often cognitively and perceptually overburdened; in contrast, the EW supervisor has become increasingly decoupled from EW activities and is often underutilized in critical aspects of EW. Pacific Science & Engineering proposes to develop a new concept for the organization and allocation of tasking between EW operators and EW supervisors that assures team situational awareness, coordinates EW assets, and efficiently manages engagements. This Phase I effort will apply a cognitive science, evidence-based approach to propose and evaluate alternative task allocation strategies using a combination of cognitive and organizational analyses, expert consultations, and modeling and simulation. The primary benefit of this approach will be improved surface EW task performance by the EW operator – EW supervisor team by identifying and developing the optimal dynamic strategy for balancing task assignments and workload between the two positions. The application goal is to validate, transition, and implement this strategy in current and future surface EW systems.