Symbiotic Planning: Cognitive-Level Collaboration Between Users and Automated Planners

Abstract : As the Department of Defense (DoD) moves into a more agile C2 environment, added requirements will be laid on operators and systems -- integration with outside systems and organizations, operation in an environment where rules change daily, and severely limited resources. We foresee an increased reliance on automated support tools -- optimizers, schedulers, evaluators -- to meet these requirements. These automated tools need to be closely coupled with an operator interface, allowing the operator to: (1) Task and constrain the automated tool, (2) View and understand what the automated tool has done, and (3) Override, correct, and retask the automated tool. This paper describes a mission planning/execution work aid coupled with an automated scheduler. The prototype has been designed using a cognitive approach which concisely presents critical information to allow the operator to rapidly understand and assess the planner's recommendations. The operator can finely control the scheduling tool, setting constraints and bounds on what the scheduler may affect. The operator can evaluate multiple options suggested by the scheduler, and can retask the scheduler to modify its work. This symbiotic prototype allows the operator and automated tool to collaborate at a cognitive level to arrive at a better solution than either alone could find.