The Design and Development of an Intelligent Planning Aid

Abstract

Abstract : This research note discusses progress in developing an intelligent tactical planning aid. It documents the development of a decision-making, planning, and decision-aiding analytical framework comprising a set of models, a generic task/behavior taxonomy, and an inventory of decision-aiding methods. Six U.S. Army officers participated in two videotaped experiments designed to capture the essence of tactical military planning. Results suggested that tactical planning at the Corps level was goal-oriented and hierarchical, that tactical planning tasks were essentially mediational in nature, and that the 'best' methods available to satisfy the requirements could be found in multi- attribute utility assessment, artificial intelligence, and interactive graphic display techniques. The TACPLAN aid assists tactical military planners at the Corps level by developing new defensive plans via the use of an intelligent tactical planning template which will elicit judgements from the planner, link the judgements to knowledge bases related to the planning process and the problem at hand, and permit the planner to draw his candidate plans through an interactive video disc-based graphic interface. Phase Two research goals include the development of these environmental and challenger capabilities, the development of additional template dimensions, the testing of an evaluation at the Army War College, and documentation.