Software Engineering Institute

Despite tremendous technological advances in handheld and wearable devices, warfighters often cannot get information they need when they need it. Causes include continued reliance on paper reports, one-way information flow, and lack of network bandwidth and handheld devices to access information. More bandwidth and new devices can improve reporting and increase the volume of information, and the Department of Defense (DoD) is increasingly interested in having soldiers carry handheld mobile computing devices to support their mission needs, but these advances will also create information overload.

This presentation will discuss and demonstrate the ISE system built by the Advanced Mobile Systems Initiative at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. The goal of ISE is information superiority via group-context-aware mobile applications that support integration of contextual information from individual soldiers, nearby soldiers operating as a unit, and the enterprise. This information can then be used to enhance the precision of information provided to warfighters. Specific innovations of this work include consideration of a wide range of contextual information, including the dynamics of unit operations, to achieve a common mission goal.