Leveraging collaborative technologies to support integrated human based-automated command and control process test and evaluation in the Virtual Testbed for Advanced Command and Control

Abstract

The Virtual Testbed for Advanced Command and Control (VTAC) program is performing research and development efforts leading to the creation of a testbed for new command and control (C2) processes, subprocesses, and embedded automated systems and subsystems. This testbed initially support the capture and modeling of existing C2 processes/subprocesses. Having modeled these at proper levels of abstraction, proposed revisions or replacements to processes, systems, and subsystems can be evaluated within a virtual workspace that integrates human operators and automated systems in the context of a larger C2 process. By utilizing such a testbed early in the development cycle, expected improvements resulting from specific revisions or replacements can be quantitatively established. Crossover effects resulting from changes to one or more interrelated processes can also be measured. Quantified measures of improvement can then be provided to decision makers for use in cost-to-performance benefits analysis prior to implementing proposed revisions or replacements or a sequence of planned enhancements. This paper first presents a high-level view of the VTAC project, followed by a discussion of the collaborative technologies leveraged to support test and evaluation of C2 processes: process capture and modeling via workflow: integrated human based-automated process execution via intelligent agents: and Web-based process visualization and analysis