Performance Measures for Improved Submarine Decision Making

This effort focuses on the development, analysis, and evaluation of measurement tools for submarine navigation teams, including support of Future Naval Capabilities efforts, and in particular, the 10-02, Adaptive Training for Submarine Navigation and Piloting (AT-SNAP) program. The primary challenge was to explore methods to automatically assess team processes in ways that are not fully dependent on instructors or observers, as is presently the case. This effort aimed to identify techniques that can automatically assess various aspects of the performance of submarine navigation teams. The Aptima team, while supporting Dr. David Kern (AT-SNAP program manager) and Sandia National Laboratories, studied the use of Sociometric Badges (produced by Sociometric Solutions, Inc.) to supplement data collection efforts. The Sociometric Badges are unobtrusive pieces of hardware that employ multiple sensors to collect various types of data as teams of people interact in complex mission environments. The badges were used to collect data as submarine crews performed exercises in Submarine Piloting and Navigation trainers during a two-day study at the Naval Submarine School in Groton, Connecticut. Although this effort is exploratory, preliminary results suggest a number of findings that speak to the benefit of Sociometric Badge technology when applied to the undersea warfare domain.
The original document contains color images.