Experienced technicians are not always available to provide technical assistance to a maintainer at sea. It is critical to be able to address these naval electronic systems’ issues as they occur. The current trend is that the experience, skill level, and number of on-site shipboard technicians are decreasing, while the complexity of the radars, weapons, and integrated combat systems (i.e., naval electronic systems) is increasing. Much of the accumulated knowledge and experience of shore-based radar and combat system operations and maintenance experts now resides in databases, detailed test plans, repair procedures, and other documents, that are unable to be leveraged by their ship based less experienced counterparts. And even if that information was available, it still takes significant experience to know where to look and understand what is critical in order to access the appropriate information in a reasonable amount of time.
The Phase II effort is a continuation of the Phase I proof-of-concept system that utilizes natural language processing to parse input knowledge bases (e.g., technical manuals) and provides an interactive, voice-commanded navigation through the technical data. Phase II extends capabilities to include greater levels of input parsing, database of operator interactions for data capture and interaction analysis, improved dialogs between operator and Instructor, integration with a fault analysis system, and deployment planning for the Phase II experimental system. The Phase II options include full field experimentation of the system in a representative environment.