Design and Implementation of a Cognitive Command and Control System for Tower Controllers

Abstract

This article describes a Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE) practitioner's approach to the preliminary design and implementation of a C2 system, focusing on how the CSE approach guided the system design features. The Virtual Assistants and Persistent Sentinels project was built as a concept demonstrator to investigate the efficacy of a CSE approach to building C2 systems. The project team adopted the Decision-Centered Design (DCD) Methodology (Crandall, Klein, & Hoffman, 2006). Guided by the DCD process, from preparation to application design, this article describes 3 examples of transitions from macrocognitive challenges to design prototypes. Preliminary evaluation was conducted using cognitive indicators (Long & Cox, 2007) to evaluate if system features hindered cognitive performance as well as by obtaining feedback from subject matter experts through a cognitive wall walk.