An Investigation of Selected Alternative Decison Aids.

This is a report of work accomplished on one task in the project entitled, Operational Decision Aids ODA, which was initiated in 1974 by the Office of Naval Research to develop aids for Navy command and control functions and make them available for incorporation in the design of future systems. The decision aids developed by ONR contractors under the ODA program make heavy use of interactive graphics. It was felt that knowledge about other military use of interactive graphics would enable us to evaluate and improve upon our own techniques as we are developing them. Therefore the authors looked for and found three decision aids that are being developed under sponsorship of agencies other than ONR and that have the following characteristics The solution process performed by the system consisting of an operator, hardware, and software considers many interacting variables The operators role is to structure the problem andor guide the process through multiple steps to a solution satisfactory to him The system uses interactive graphics to represent the problem and to display potential solutions and The problem is dynamic and the system helps the operator to consider problem dynamics. The report describes these three aids.