A Context-Driven Framework for Proactive Decision Support With Applications

Major challenges anticipated in the future C⁴ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) operations involve rapid mission planning/ re-planning in highly dynamic, asymmetric, unpredictable, and network-centric environments. Developing decision support for such complex mission environments requires automated processing, interpretation, and development of proactive decisions using large volumes of structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data, while simultaneously decreasing the time necessary to arrive at a decision. To overcome this data deluge, there is a need for mastering information dominance via acquisition, fusion, and transfer of the right data/information/knowledge from the right sources in the right mission context to the right decision-maker (DM) at the right time for the right purpose (6R). The fundamental challenge in achieving the 6R is to conceive a generic framework that encompasses the dynamics of relevant contextual elements, their interdependence and correlation to the current and evolving situation, while taking into account the cognitive status of the DM. In this paper, we propose a context-driven proactive decision support (PDS) framework that comprises: 1) adaptive model-based dynamic graph models (e.g., Dynamic Hierarchical Bayesian Networks) and the concomitant inference algorithms for context representation, inference, and forecasting, 2) information selection, valuation, and prioritization methods for context-driven operations, including uncertainty management approaches, and 3) application of PDS concepts for courses of action recommendations across representative maritime operations.