Value-of-Information Driven Content Presentation and Filtering in Military Geographic Information Systems

Abstract

Military C3I (Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence) operations at the tactical level have come to rely upon Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to access geotagged information relevant to mission needs. Management of Information Objects within military GIS applications presents a number of known research challenges, tied both to selection of mission-appropriate information and management of Soldier attention. Towards supporting prioritized content delivery and filtering within tactical networks, methods based on the estimated Value of Information (VoI) specific to mission context have demonstrated prior performance benefits (e.g., conservation of network bandwidth). However, limited HCI-themed research has been conducted to-date on Soldier interaction with VoI-augmented GIS applications, including assessment of their impact on situational awareness over areas of operation. This paper presents foundational work for studying Soldier interaction with VoI-augmented GIS applications, covering: (1) a supporting experimental platform based on the Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK); (2) a pilot study conducted with Soldiers, to assess the impact of VoI-based content prioritization on user experience and Information Object review.