JFACC Agent-based Mentoring System (JAMS)

Recent military operations have clarified the benefits of a centralized aerospace control concept under the authority of the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC). However, these potential benefits can be compromised by the sheer complexity of the JFACC's responsibilities, and the lack of available training resources to support effective performance. As a result, the JFACC is expected to learn largely "on the job". We believe that this on the job learning experience can be enhanced by an on-line, software-based mentoring environment, which monitors JFACC activities and provides "advice" to help him achieve his objectives. This mentor is not a typical decision aid - it does not provide specific guidance with respect to operational decision-making. Rather, it provides the JFACC with in-depth insight into his own business processes, allowing him to track current objectives, task status, and performance. We propose to develop a JFACC Agent-based Mentoring System (JAMS), comprised of three components: 1) a set of mentoring agents encoding the task space for JFACC operations; 2) a dynamic user model that estimates user state and adjusts the interactions between the user and mentoring agents; and 3) an intuitive human/system interface (HSI) supporting the JFACC's understanding of his current objectives, tasks, and performance.