Future Combat Systems Command and Control (FCS C2) Human Functions Assessment: Interim Report - Experiment 3

The Army's ongoing transformation to Future Combat Systems (FCS) requires an unprecedented alliance of humans and machines. Creating an alliance that actually improves, and does not impede, battle command is a human systems integration challenge for FCS and particularly the area of command and control (C2). To address that challenge, the FCS C2 program is investigating future battle command concepts at the small unit level. The FCS C2 effort, led by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Communications Electronics and Engineering Command (CECOM) with a focus on human performance by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI), included a series of four command group-in-the-loop experiments from October 2001 to March 2003. This report provides exemplar research methods and findings on human performance from Experiment 3. The human performance findings reported are based on subjective measures and highly detailed objective measures of the command group's verbal and human-computer interactions. Interim conclusions are provided on the following topics: workload, training, automated measures, and human- system integration. In closing, a brief set of sustain and improve recommendations are provided for future research efforts. A companion report provides a more comprehensive assessment of future command group performance across FCS C2 Experiments IA (Lickteig, Sanders, Durlach, Lussier, & Carnahan, In Preparation).Army Research Inst for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Fort Knox Ny Armored Forces Research Unit is the author of 'Future Combat Systems Command and Control (FCS C2) Human Functions Assessment: Interim Report - Experiment 3' with ISBN 9781423514619 and ISBN 1423514610.