Situational Awareness: What Is It? Can It Be Improved?,

Fleet aviators consistently rank situational awareness SA as a critical mission concern. SA, although elusive, must be understood and improved for the sake of mission effectiveness, expansion, survivability, and safety. The essence of SA is the reception, manipulation, and use of information. SA encompasses the physical, mental, psychological, social and physiological capabilities of the human operator. The operator must sense and perceive variables in the environment and then process that information. The information must be filtered and applied to the specific mission phase to maintain SA. Optimizing information formatting and presentation speeds, and meaningfully integrating data to display information elements or chunks that are readily useable to the aircrew can have a positive impact on aircrew SA. Rapidly developing improvements in information processing and transfer technologies, specifically sensor fusion and automation techniques, can provide even more diverse information to the aircrew. Efficient, effective presentation of necessary information to the aircrew is becoming even more important. By taking a closer look at sensor data and investigating advanced technologies, we can present a more comprehensive, focused picture of the environment to the aircrew enhancing SA. This process, logically, will result in increased threat awarenessavoidance, increased mission effectiveness, improved survivability, and increased safety.