Task support through total ship information management

Abstract

Flexible, dynamic task-managed watchstanding breaks the traditional model of a component system with its own operators. Watchstanders' interaction with their operational world is now mediated through explicitly designed tasks; each task may require information from and exercise control over a number of diverse information-providing and action-taking systems. These task-system linkages are contextual; the particular information required by a particular watchstander's particular task depends on the particular situation in which it is undertaken. Information and control connections must be determined dynamically while remaining understandable and manageable by watchstanders and supervisory authorities. We describe the Total Ship Information Management (TSIM) architecture that we have implemented to accomplish this. TSIM works with the Multi-Modal Watchstation through the use of ship-wide Enterprise Objects that represent (among other things) missions, orders, goals, watchstanders, tasks, events, information requirements, and information providers to route contextually-required information to each MMWS task and watchstander.