An experiment on the utility of blue force tracker: the costs and benefits of having God's eye view

Abstract

Military command and control is becoming increasingly sophisticated in technological terms. One important technology currently being employed on the battlefield is 'blue force tracker'. The system provides a real-time situation map of friendly forces' locations. The technology has not yet been adequately investigated in the literature to determine its effectiveness and limitations. In this paper aspects of this gap are addressed by empirically investigating the cognitive costs and benefits of an exemplar blue force tracker using military personnel. Two section commanders and a section of eight soldiers completed a series of simple command and control missions, half with blue force tracker, and half without. A measure of cognitive load was taken for each scenario which allowed a comparison between conditions. The findings suggest that blue force tracker is an effective command and control technology at the fire-team level, and has no additional cognitive impact compared with the use of a paper map.