Context-Driven Proactive Decision Support: Challenges and Applications

Rapid mission planning/re-planning and execution in a highly dynamic, asymmetric, and unpredictable mission environment is challenging, as it requires a proactive decision sup- port (PDS) system that is anticipative and adaptive/adaptable to changes in the mission. The existing decision support sys- tems are inundated with too much data and not enough information, resulting in cognitive overloading of decision mak- ers (DMs), thereby increasing the probability of mission failure. In order to overcome the issue of information overload, it is imperative to deliver the right data/information/knowledge from the right sources in the right mission context to the right DM at the right time for the right purpose (6R). Here, we define context as a multi-dimensional evolving feature space consisting of mission goals, environment, assets, threats/tasks and cognitive state of the DMs. In this paper, we propose a PDS framework for: i) defining dynamically integrated knowledge that is relevant to the mission context; ii) detect- ing changes in mission context; iii) diagnosing and predicting mission context to develop “what-if” analysis; and iv) provid- ing relevant courses of action recommendations , while considering the DM’s workload, time pressure, risk propensity and expertise. Two illustrative applications of PDS framework are discussed.