The term "battlefield" may elicit vastly different images across people. And well it should. The battlefield is a diverse and complex place. It can be a desert or a jungle. It can be unbearably hot or bitterly cold. It can be a populated city or an uninhabited wasteland. But battles are also fought on the sea and in the air and so these places also must be considered "battlefields." Battles are fought by soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen. And, they are fought at multiple echelons - tactical, operational, and strategic.

But, the battlefield is more than just places and people. It also includes processes. Traditionally, it employs a hierarchical organizational structure which plans operations, communicates those plans, resources those who execute the plans, and monitors the progress of subordinate organizations toward stated goals. The organizations also respond to anomalous events by modifying the established plans.

Digitizing the battlefield would appear to be an overwhelming task, given the inherent diversity in its places, people, and processes. Interestingly, the five papers presented in the Digital Battlefield panel shared a remarkable number of perspectives, given the affiliations and backgrounds of the authors. The panelists consisted of:

• Jack Hiller, Director of Personnel Technologies, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel;
• Celestine Ntuen, North Carolina Agricultural and Tehnological State University;
• Larry Rosenblum, Naval Research Laboratory;
• Lawrence Shattuck, United States Military Academy; and,
• Robert Smillie, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego.

Three of the presentations discussed initiatives, observations, and results of research concerning the digital battlefield. These presentations also identified four characteristics of the battlefield that designers of technology must address. The other two presentations addressed broad methodological issues.

Characteristics and Requirements of the Battlefield

Uncertainty. In the past, commanders have had to make critical decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This is not likely to change in the future. Formerly, a commander's lack of information caused the uncertainty. His response was to wait for more information to trickle in before making a decision. On the digital battlefield, there will be no shortage of data. Commanders and staffs, however, may have difficulty converting the data into useful information or finding the missing piece in the mountain of available data. The tempo of events on the battlefield will also increase significantly. Tanks, planes, and ships will travel faster. Weapon systems will shoot farther. Sensor systems will "see" farther. The increase in tempo means that our commanders must make decisions and implement plans faster than the enemy in order to win. With less time available to make decisions, commanders will still be required to make decisions with less than perfect knowledge.

Information Overload. Advances in communication systems, computers, and sensors have dramatically increased the data available to commanders and their staffs. However, the data often is unfiltered. Presently, technological systems are not capable of sorting or filtering the data in a manner consistent with the information requirements of the commander. The burden of integrating the information from disparate sources falls to the commander and staff. Yet, there has been no growth in the size of the staff commensurate with the increase in available data. On the contrary, introducing technology was supposed to result in a decrease in staff size. In addition, the battlefield continues to grow in complexity. The result of this growth is that it becomes even more difficult to understand relationships, determine causality, and predict outcomes.

Situational Awareness. Many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have heard "situational awareness" so often that they have created their own acronym - SA. Although they know what it is, they are not always capable of achieving it. One method of achieving situational awareness is to send all data to everyone. Even if the communications architecture could support it, this method is not appropriate. Lower echelon units do not have the same informational requirements as those at higher echelons. It is not necessary for a junior officer to have the same amount or detail of situational awareness as a general officer.

Visualization. In addition to maintaining situational awareness, commanders and their staffs must also be able to visualize the battlefield. They must understand factors such as terrain, unit and weapon system capabilities, time, distance factors, and the impact of the environment. They must be able to comprehend the present and to envision the future. This capability will require innovative methods for displaying information and for human-machine interaction.

Digitizing the battlefield will be a lengthy, costly process. Two of the presentations addressed methodological issues that are vital to the development of timely, cost-effective, human-centered systems.

Users in the Design Loop. Military services are beginning to understand the importance of including users in the design process. Typical approaches to design may include human factors evaluators at the end of the design process, if at all. But, prototyping that is performed early in the design process and tested by users can be invaluable. At this stage, designers can ensure they have the theories and principles right before they proceed to designing the hardware.

The Role of Simulation. Simulation will play an important role in both the design process and in training personnel to use advanced technologies. New concepts can be implemented in virtual environments and tested at relatively low cost. Unfortunately, simulations do not model human performance effectively under variable, stressful conditions. More work is needed in this area. Simulations will also provide military personnel the ability to fight a wide variety of enemy forces in diverse terrain under different climatic conditions without having to leave their home station.

Task Analysis. Essential to developing digital systems for the battlefield is a clear understanding of what military personnel do in planning and conducting operations. Researchers will use methods such as task analysis (both cognitive and behavioral) for eliciting knowledge and describing behaviors. Much work has already been done in this area but it is not yet clear how the tasks ought to be allocated to the various human and machine agents in the system.

The five presentations shared two additional themes. First, the emphasis was on aiding human cognition, specifically, decision making. Researchers examined operations centers in the Army, Navy, and Marine organizations at various echelons. This emphasis suggests the applicability of cognitive engineering paradigms such as distributed cognition, distributed supervisory control, and cooperative problem solving. Second, the emphasis was on technology. Each presenter discussed systems that were already in place or that were being planned to aid human cognitive activities. The focus of these researchers, however, was to ensure that the technology was human-centered.