COGENT: Cognitive Agent to Amplify Human Perception
and Cognition
Subrata Das and Dan Grecu
Charles River Analytics, Inc.
725 Concord Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
+1 (617) 491-3474
{sdas, dgrecu} @cra.com
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of a cognitive agent,
COGENT, to amplify human perceptual and cognitive abilities in
complex high-value operational environments such as are found
in spacecraft ground-based telemetry monitoring systems. The
architecture of COGENT is based on Rasmussen's integrated
theory of human information processing, and supports decision-
making at multiple levels of abstraction and complexity. The
decision-aiding process ranges from situation feature extraction
and summarization to support perceptual processing, through
situation assessment and alert generation to support enhanced
situation awareness, to situation-specific response
recommendation to support complex decision-making. COGENT
displays information in a format that is easily understood, and
matches the user's own mental model of the situation, thus
requiring minimal amounts of translation and cognitive processing
for assimilation. The robust performance of COGENT is assured
through the use of complementary AI techniques such as
probabilistic belief networks and argumentation. We developed
and demonstrated a prototype for COGENT, and tested it on real
telemetry data sets. We are specifically addressing our effort for
enhancing operator situation awareness and decision-aiding
capability at ground stations.
Keywords
Cognitive agent, decision aiding, event generation, situation
assessment, information filtering, visualization.
1. INTRODUCTION
Modem decision-making in real-time dynamic environments is
increasingly becoming an information management task. The
decision-maker must integrate domain knowledge gained from
previous experience with the large quantities of incoming real-
time data, reflecting the current situation.
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443
This is particularly the case in critical domains such as ground-
based spacecraft operations, where mission operators receive
streams of information from a large number of sources: telemetry
data from the satellite, environmental data, information from other
control sites, or data stored in databases.
The amount and variety of incoming information creates the need
of aiding the user in assimilating it, and of supporting him/her to
integrate the information in various types of task-specific
processing. While there are many tools available that separately
address information presentation or decision-support, there are
few approaches that set out to provide the user with integrated
support, at different levels of information abstraction and for a
combination of tasks. This goal represents a particular challenge
given that there is a tight corroboration between the information
contents, the format in which it the information is presented to the
user, and the tasks it can be used for.
In this paper, we describe an agent-architecture developed to
support users by amplifying perception and cognition in critical
operational environments. The goal of the agent development is to
provide the user with information that is timely, relevant, and easy
to assimilate. We first describe the background in which the agent
is intended to operate, and how users relate to this context. We
then introduce the COGENT architecture designed to facilitate
and enhance the user's interaction with the operational
environment. The description will further focus on the decision-
aiding component within the agent, and will be followed by
implementation details, conclusions and future work directions.
2. BACKGROUND AND APPROACH
The motivation for developing an agent that amplifies human
perception and cognition lies in the specifics of operator tasks,
which require competent response through a range of behaviors
spanning from the reactive to the highly deliberative end of the
spectrum. Recent research indicates that expert decision-makers
quickly assimilate and integrate large quantities of information
and generate appropriate decisions if the information is presented
in a format that is appropriate for the level at which the
information will be processed (recognition-primed decision-
making) [ 1,6]. Humans are generally not good at handling large
amounts of low-level details, at keeping track of uncertain
information, at propagating it through mental simulations, and at
maintaining unbiased perspectives in high-value outcome
situations [ 15].
The control of spacecraft through ground operation centers is one
of the domains where operators face these types of challenges.
Satellites send streams of telemetry data to the ground center
describing the status of the onboard systems. The format of the
data consists of the parameter name or mnemonic (representing a
specific reading or onboard parameter setting), the parameter
value, the start and the end time for the associated values, and an
indication of whether the parameter's value is within normal
operating limits. Typically, such data streams can include
hundreds of messages within minutes. Some messages are critical
on their own, especially if they report the malfunctioning of a
system. Other messages provide information through their
cumulative effect, indicating an evolution process. And there also
are messages that have meaning only when used in conjunction
with additional messages indicating together the occurrence of a
high-level situation. The operator is required to identify and
recognize the relevant information in each of these classes, and to
respond with appropriate decisions.
In the context of the tasks required from a ground control
operator, providing support through an external decision-aiding
system implies:
• Filtering out mission-irrelevant information, assessing
situations, and actively presenting mission-relevant
information in direct correlation with the points reached in
the decision-making process;
• Providing information to the operator that is difficult or time-
consuming to derive due to the natural limitations of human
cognitive and perceptual processing; and
• Presenting the derived information in a format that is easily
understood and that matches the operators own mental
model of the situation, thus requiring minimal amounts of
translation and cognitive processing for assimilation.
To address these objectives in an integrated fashion we have
developed an innovative agent architecture based on an integrated
theory of human information processing [14], which supports
decision-making at multiple-levels of abstraction and complexity.
The architecture supports decision-aiding ranging from simple
perceptual enhancement of salient situation features to support
perceptual processing, through event detection and situation
assessment to support enhanced situation awareness, to situation-
specific response recommendation to support complex decision-
making and option selection.
Rasmussen's three-tier model of human information processing,
shown in figure 1, is well suited for guiding both the definition of
the mission operator's information requirements and the task and
user profile [13,14]. The arch of the figure represents the flow of
information through the human decision-maker. The left side of
the arch corresponds to stimulus processing, the right side
corresponds to motor processing. Processing is divided into three
broad categories, corresponding to activities at three different
levels of complexity. At the lowest level is skill-based
sensorimotor behavior, such as perceptual feature extraction and
hand-eye coordination. This level represents the most automated,
largely unconscious level of skilled performance. At the next level
is rule-based behavior, exemplified by simple procedural skills for
well-practiced, simple tasks such as detection of significant
events. Knowledge-based behavior represents the most complex
cognitive processing used to solve difficult and unfamiliar
444
problems. Examples of this type of processing include reasoning
about unfamiliar faults in the spacecraft, and other similar tasks.
Increasing
lcompl
evelofexity
m
informatinogn
processi
/ (e2RUxl
bl,bBl~~'kt.ai !edo°Pcuf~2~abltih~£or
(e.g.,sensorimotor behavior)
INPUT OUTPUT
ENVIRONMENT [
Figure 1: Rasmussen's hierarchy of human cognitive
processing
By dividing skilled behavior into categories based on the degree
of automaticity, complexity, and level of cognitive processing, the
Rasmussen framework supports systematic analysis of the
information and knowledge required at each stage of processing.
In the context of COGENT, this framework provides guidelines
for the design of the decision-aiding module, specifically, for
defining functionality to support the operator in three major tasks:
data preparation, situation assessment, and response
recommendation. These decision-aiding functions and their
implementation in COGENT are discussed in the next sections.
3. COGENT ARCHITECTURE
The underlying philosophy motivating our approach is to provide
decision-support and visualization for complex high-value
operations (e.g., ground station operation, spacecraft operations,
flight operations, etc.) in a manner that complements existing
human perceptual and cognitive abilities in tasks that humans find
difficult. These tasks include the management of uncertain
information, keeping track of large numbers of details, detecting
conflicts among currently active alternatives, preventing biased
use of existing information, and assisting in contingency planning
and action/reaction assessment, all of which have been identified
to be characteristic of expert decision-makers [3].
Figure 2 illustrates the overall architecture of COGENT with its
two major components: the decision-aiding module and the
visualization interface module. The decision-aiding module maps
the hierarchical Rasmussen cognitive processing model, and is at
the core of COGENT providing three key functional components:
1) The data preparation component receives the raw telemetry
data, extracts relevant situation features, and generates events
reflecting the on-board changes. 2) The situation assessment
component generates evaluations based on the events produced
from the telemetry data, and generates alerts whenever the results
of the evaluation indicate critical states. 3) The response
recommendation component ranks possible operator decisions in
the current situation based on the associated context and on prior
knowledge. The three components of the decision-aiding module
are software components configured through a predefined
application programming interface. The modular structure
provides the possibility to plug in modules allowing COGENT to
interact with other instances of COGENT agents, with external
information sources such as ground-stations, spacecraft and
satellites, databases and remote sensing equipment.
Situation Fe~ures Alerts Recommendations
Decision
Aiding
Module
..... N ..........
Figure 2: COGENT architecture
The decision-aiding module uses a combination of techniques to
ensure robust aiding with respect to the challenges raised in each
operational reasoning phase. At the lowest level, probabilistic
rule-based techniques are used for event generation and
information filtering in situations where incoming data is
uncertain, and/or conflicting. The decision-aiding module
maintains a database, which serves as a repository of the
accumulated filtered events from raw telemetry data, and which
stores user supplied profiles for information filtering and alarm
generation. At the next level, Bayesian belief networks implement
situation assessment under incomplete situation descriptions.
Finally, at the top level, the operator is supported in selecting
between several possible decision alternatives through a response
recommendation mechanism based on argumentation techniques.
The visualization interface module displays the information
produced by the decision-aiding module in a format matching the
typical representation for the task currently executed by the
operator, and the operator's cognitive and decision-making style
and training. The information provided by the visualization
interface is derived through the processing stages within the
decision-aiding module including telemetry summarization,
argumentation for or against actions, and causal explanation for
situations that have been assessed. The agent's local database
stores task and user profiles that define the information display
format matching typical decision-making patterns and specific
445
task and situation characteristics. COGENT is designed to display
information relevant to the current situation, thus supporting the
user to focus attention on key attributes and relations.
4. DECISION-AIDING IN COGENT
Our goal within this paper is to illustrate how COGENT integrates
several techniques to successfully support alternating reasoning
types of the human operator. We focus in this section on the
particular types of support that are being provided through
COGENT, and on how they all fit together in the overall task of
mission control.
4.1 Data preparation
Spacecraft situation assessment and status visualization require an
appropriate processing of raw telemetry to extract situational
features as events, to filter out irrelevant information, and to
summarize data to prevent information overloading (figure 3). The
event generation step maps the incoming data stream into a pre-
defined set of domain relevant events. The information filtering
step then filters events according to the operator profile. The
summarization step summarizes telemetry events without any
significant loss of user perception about the status of the satellite.
Users can be presented with filtered events as well as their
summary.
To Situation Assessment
and Visualization Modules
A
Summarizeddata& eventa T
I Fh'~t¢ldata & events
!
Payload I Status& health
data I data
Figure 3: Data preparation phases and their relation to
situation assessment and information visualization
4.1.1 Event generation
The event generation step correlates the data from onboard
sensors to specific pre-determined situation features, and
generates low level situation events. For example, the temperature
readings from a payload are fused with spacecraft attitude system
data to generate the 'change in temperature' event for the payload
when it is not pointing directly to the sun, and therefore a
temperature rise is not expected. The event generation step is
further justified by the fact that continuous sensor readings must
be quantized for the belief net (BN) processing that follows in the
situation assessment phase.
Events are defined as occurrences (e.g., actions or changes of
state) in the domain that may affect or impinge on domain objects.
For example in engineering status and health data, events may
include changes of values for discrete data types, large or small
deviations in values for continuous data types, or out of limit
values for all data types. Events have target objects and attributes
or parameters (e.g., for an out of limit event, the target would be
the associated satellite component registering the data reading and
possible event attributes would be the time of the reading and
value of the reading). Events are discrete entities that indicate the
level of normality of the target's behavior. We used an event
model having event types based on individual telemetry parameter
values.
COGENT's event generation module operating on the available
telemetry data uses the event model outlined in figure 4. As
shown, we have two sets of event types (denoted by rectangles)
defined based on the target objects (denoted by ovals). The target
objects within our model are continuous-valued parameters and
discrete-valued parameters. Individual event types are derived
from the color schemes existing within the telemetry files (e.g.,
Green, Red, Yellow, etc.).
Continuous Events
/ / J ~'.~
Value End Time
Discrete Events
Value
/
O
Start Time End Time
Figure 4: Event model used by COGENT
For continuous-valued parameters, seven event types are present
ranging from High Red to Low Red. Green values indicate
parameter levels that are within the nominal range, Yellow
indicates tolerable out-of-range values, while Red stands for
signal deviations-that correspond to an emergency level. High and
Low specify whether the qualification refers to the superior or
inferior border of the parameter range. Whereas the range for Red
and Yellow events are pre-set based on existing spacecraft limit
settings, the ranges for the Green events are user-specified. For
example, the user can choose to evenly divide the Green region
(33.33% each), or make the Green region take up 90% with Low
Green and High Green taking the lower and upper 5% each of the
nominal green range, respectively. Attributes for each continuous
event, as shown in figure 4, include Value, the time the parameter
took that value (Start Time), and the final time the parameter had
that value (End Time).
Event types for discrete-valued parameters include Green and
Red, corresponding directly to the information given in the
446
telemetry values. As with the continuous events, the attributes for
the discrete events are parameter Value, Start Time, and End
Time.
The event model that we have adopted implemented a flexible and
intuitive model which provided COGENT the necessary means to
perform data filtering, summarization, and prioritization.
4.1.2 Information f i l t e r i n g
In the context of engineering data management, information
filtering is the mechanism through which the user/ground team
can subscribe profiles that are continuously evaluated, and allows
COGENT to send filtered events according to the profile. A
profile is a set of rules of the form:
IF Spacecraft-Mode(X) THEN Filter(Y)
The mode variable X can take values such as normal or fail-safe.
The filter variable Y can be any combination from the set of
values into which spacecraft parameters are discretized according
to their degree of emergency: High Red, High Yellow, High
Green, Green, Low Green, Low Yellow, and Low Red.
Consider a profile consisting of the following two rules:
IF Spacecraft-Mode(normal) THEN Filter( { Green, Yellow})
IF Spacecraft-Mode(fail-safe) THEN Filter(None)
The first rule states that if the spacecraft mode is normal then
Green and Yellow events should be filtered out, and only the Red
events should be passed to the data summarization module. On
the other hand, the second rule states that everything passes
through the filter if the spacecraft is in fail-safe mode.
4.1.3 Data summarization
Summarizing status and health data or events from a filtered data
or event stream aims to save bandwidth without any significant
loss of operator perception about the status of the satellite.
COGENT uses several classes of techniques for summarizing
events such as saliency, abstraction, integration, link analysis, and
statistical analysis. We exemplify two some of them here,
indicating the way they support mission analysis at a semantic
level.
COGENT computes correlation coefficient matrices across
parameters, by determining the linear relationship between two
parameters x and y as measured by the Pearson coefficient of
linear correlation r [9]. This method is similar to a zone frequency
analysis except that the warning limits are statistical, such as lcr-
level, 2G-level and 3a-level, where ~ is the standard deviation of
the parameter values. A correlation between parameters is a data
summarization form stipulating that if the agent sends information
for x, it should also send information for y. For example, to
summarize a High Red event for x, associated data for y should
also be included.
A second summarization method used by COGENT is event
clustering, as implemented through time variant, time invariant,
and delta methods. The time variant method puts consecutive
events within the same zone (e.g., High Yellow) into one cluster.
Each of the clusters is represented by three parameters: its size,
the mean value, and the time-period over which the cluster
expands. The time invariant method clusters events according to
the zone. Each such cluster is represented by its size and the mean also to the response recommendation module, even if their
of all the values falling within the cluster. This clustering method criticality does not require alert generation.
is therefore a generalization of the zone frequency method. The
The high-level situation assessor is implemented using the
delta interval method does clustering around events that are
Bayesian Belief Network (BN) model [8,11,12]. Besides being
considered important or unusual. The delta interval method allows
computationally tractable, and besides capturing the cause-effect
one to analyze the immediate predecessors and successors of the
relationships that exist amongst the variables of the domain, belief
event being considered. The clustering summaries are critical in
network models offer the advantage of closely reflecting expert
providing the operator with parameter trend analyses, and in
knowledge. This typically makes them easier to construct (thus
determining situation criticality as transient or stabile depending
minimizing the knowledge engineering costs), and easier to
on the time spans covered by the clusters. Summaries will allow
modify.
to further extract symbolic information from the data that can be
used in prioritizing the information presentation process for the The COGENT situation assessment component uses belief
operator. networks to verify spacecraft subsystems status following operator
commands. When a command is sent to the spacecraft, the belief
As in the case of event generation and filtering, summarization is
networks determine the expected values of relevant status
driven by the profiles selected by the user as being appropriate for
parameters. The resulting state is then compared with the actual
the task currently in progress. Profiles can be changed in response
telemetry to detect anomalies.
to changes in the mission development or in the goals that are
pursued.

4.2 Situation assessment

The next level of intelligent operator support through COGENT is
intended to provide a situation analysis based on the semantic and
causal integration of the events generated on board of the
spacecraft. The purpose of this functionality within COGENT is
twofold. First, given that the agent acts as a gateway for the
information streamed towards the operator, it has a much better
opportunity than the human operator to capture the data that is
part of a causal model. Consequently, COGENT can continuously
update the model, and keep the user informed only on the high-
level aspects that are of immediate interest. Second, COGENT has
a much better potential to monitor values that result through the
assessment, to identify abnormalities, and to use the model to
identify potential causes.
1• A High-Level
Event. High'!Tevel
].,.~l
Situations
' ~ High-LevelSituationAssessor ]~
Events
Figure 5: Situation assessment component in COGENT
The diagram in figure 5 summarizes these two functions as they
are implemented by COGENT. The input to the situation
assessment component is represented by the low-level events
generated within the data preparation module. The events may
directly trigger alerts if they exceed pre-determined limits. Events
are simultaneously input into the high-level situation assessor,
which is also monitored by the alert generator. The alerts that are
generated this time refer to high-level situation evaluations. The
results of the situation assessment are provided to the user, and
Figure 6: Belief network for spacecraft anomaly detection
Figure 6 provides a belief network example for command
verification. Each variable in the network is a parameter
representing either a subsystem parameter (e.g., P Y M s p e e d -
wheel speed, N S D S V , north-south downstream valve) or a
command (e.g., MDmaneuver- momentum dump maneuver,
ThrActiv - thruster activation). The situation illustrated in the
figure reflects a case where a high wheel speed causes a value
indication of PYMspeed in the High Red range. The action can be
corrected through a momentum dump maneuver (MDmaneuver)
which will reduce the excessive speed. The momentum dump
maneuver in turn requires a thruster activation (Thr._Activ). Thus,
following along the direction of the red arrows in figure 6, the
observation of a high value of PYMspeed should automatically
recommend the thruster firing. If this command is sent to the
spacecraft then the expected state for the north-south downstream
valve (NSDSV) should be off. If the state of NSDSVis found to be
on in the incoming telemetry then an anomalous situation will
occur, and an alarm should be generated.
This situation is captured in figure 7, a snapshot from COGENT's
execution. The red arrow on the left-hand side of the figure
points to the expected value (off~green) computed by the belief
net. The red arrow at the bottom of the figure points to the actual
telemetry reading (on~red). The anomaly is detected and therefore
an alarm is generated (at the center of the figure).

447

Figure 7: Expected value and actual telemetry comparison
followed by alarm generation
4.3 Response recommendation
The overall function of the response recommendation module is to
recommend a suitable action based on the current situation, as
identified by the situation assessment module. The
recommendation process implements Toulmin's model of
argumentation [16]. The model has been successfully applied in
various application domains including medicine [2,5] and
software verification [4]. The internal architecture of the response
recommendation module is shown in Figure 8.
l Recommendation
Aggregation ]
[
T Arguments
Argumentation ]
~ Decision Options
I Decision Option Generator I
TEvents and Situation Types
Figure 8: Internal Architecture of the Response
Recommendation Module
The first step of the response recommendation process identifies
all relevant candidate response options in the current situation.
The second step then generates and evaluates arguments for and
against these options. The final step chooses the best response
option by evaluating these arguments.
The knowledge used to construct and evaluate arguments is
represented by rules. Examples of rules for the current scenario
are shown in Table 1. The values of the strengths of arguments for
( s l , s2, s3) and against ( n l ) a response are obtained through a
knowledge elicitation process with expert decision-makers.
448
Situation
- temperature increase in imaging payload
Possible responses
- slew payload
- cover payload
Example Arguments for and against candidates
IF imaging not urgent AND temperature is acceptable
THEN cover payload (sl)
IF temperature is too high
THEN slew payload (s2)
IF covering process takes exceeds payload exposure limit
THEN slew payload (s3)
IF payload will soon be out of the sun
THEN NOT slew payload (nl) AND NOT cover payload (nl)
where sl, s2, s3, and nl represent strengths of arguments
for/against the responses
Final recommendations and explanation:
- slew payload
Table 1: Example of Response Recommendation Process
The evaluation of the arguments is performed through a process of
aggregation. This process includes not only an assessment of the
number of arguments and the strength of each independent
argument, in other words is based on the collective force of
arguments for each hypothesis, but also on the plausibility of the
evidence and justification for each line of argument. For example,
if the current situation provides two arguments for the response
"slew payload", then these two arguments will be aggregated to
produce a combined strength, which is expected to be higher than
both s2 and s3. If we use the probabilistic dictionary [0, 1] to
represent strength, then the two arguments can be aggregated by
using a special case of Dempster's epistemie probability [7] which
is s2 + s3 - s2 * s3. On the other hand, if we use the dictionary
[-1, +1], then the arguments can be combined using formulae
from the certainty factor formalism.
For each response all arguments for and against it are combined in
the above manner to accumulate total evidence for and against the
response. Evidence against each response discounts evidence for
the response. For example, if a particular situation provides
arguments for and against the response "cover payload" with the
evidence being respectively s l and n l , then the aggregated
evidence is sl*(1 - nl)/(1 - s l * n l ) . If such an aggregation process
associates more weight to the response "slew payload" than to any
other response, then the response will be considered as a best
option in the current situation, and will be presented as such to the
operator.
A key aspect of COGENT's decision-aiding process is the ability
to explain the user the system output by following the steps of
arguments. This is particularly critical when actual decision
recommendations are being made. COGENT provides
justifications for its decision recommendations in the form of
high-level inferencing diagrams illustrating the data sources and
knowledge used to derive any conclusions or recommendations.
5. E V A L U A T I O N AND
IMPLEMENTATION
COGENT was tested on a data set consisting of eight different
telemetry passes. Of these eight passes, seven encompassed
normal operation while one pass included an orbital maneuver.
Two event profiles (specifying how parameter values are mapped
to events) and three filtering profiles (determines which event
types are allowed to pass through) were selected. In general, each
pass generated on the order of several thousands of events.
Filtering reduced the event streams to as low as thirty or as high
as four hundred events based on the event/filtering profiles that
were active. Summarization results concentrated on a comparison
of event summaries between the non-normal pass and a normal
pass. Statistical and clustering summarization techniques clearly
differentiated between the two passes by showing the higher level
variability and fluctuation amongst event types for individual
parameters for the non-normal data set.
The situation assessment process compared the actual spacecraft
state with the expected state and generated alarms in case of
anomalies. The visualization module mapped the filtered
summaries into high, normal, and low priority queues, with
summaries relating to important attitude control system
parameters being automatically included in the high priority
visualization queue. The events for situations that were evaluated
as anomalous were further forwarded to the response
recommendation module.
The visualization module provides the operator with information
resulting simultaneously from all three levels of decision support.
Figure 7 illustrates a situation where the operator is presented
with time variant summaries for the NSDSV (north-south
downstream valve activation) parameter, with the value for the
corresponding belief network node, and with the alarm that is
generated as a result of comparing the expected value with the
actual telemetry reading. The visualization module ranks the
output of the three decision-aiding modules based on the current
situation, and using knowledge about the information expectations
of the user in that particular situation. For example, COGENT
maps filtered and summarized data into one of three queues: high
priority, normal priority, and low priority. The mapping or
visualization profile is specified via a user-set list of high priority
parameters, an acceptable number of limit exceedances, and
allowable thresholds for outlier values. The visualization of
summarized data involved the display of clustering, parameter
data distribution, temporal trends, etc. Visualization of belief
network inferencing involved the display of the current states of
the variables in the network concerned. The system visualized the
state of a node change, upon the propagation of a control
command or the propagation of a telemetry data item.
The data preparation module is implemented as a message parser
of telemetry messages, and uses an object based representations to
represent the encoded state changes. Simple subsytem models are
used to encode the evolution dynamics as a result of commands
and of the generated events. The event filtering component is rule-
based, using primarily Boolean filtering criteria. The
summarization component relies on a library of statistical and
clustering methods.
The situation assessment module is developed based on a library
of Bayesian belief network algorithms. Belief networks support
449
complex situation assessment and anomaly detection by modeling
the problem into a network structure that embeds key domain
concepts and relationships used by ground operators and
spacecraft analysts. We have used our in-house belief network
engine to implement the situation assessment module of
COGENT.
The response recommendation module is implemented on a
standalone Prolog platform. The implementation currently
incorporates two dictionaries: the qualitative dictionary {% ++}
and the probabilistic dictionary [0, 1]. We plan to enhance the
number of dictionaries and integrate the current standalone
argumentation module with the COGENT prototype.
6. C O N C L U S I O N S AND F U T U R E
DIRECTIONS
In this paper, we have presented a cognitive agent, COGENT, to
amplify human perception and cognition. The COGENT agent is
motivated by cognitive theory to provide decision-aiding at
multiple levels of information processing. COGENT relies on
complementary AI techniques to support processing at three
levels: data preparation via data fusion, information filtering and
summarization techniques, situation assessment via belief nets,
and response recommendation via argumentation. We have
demonstrated the use of COGENT in the context of a ground-
based control for communication satellite problem using telemetry
data sets. The scope of this paper is the decision-aiding aspect of
COGENT. The other characteristics of COGENT including,
visualization, communication, and learning, will be detailed
elsewhere.
We are currently exploring further development directions for the
decision-aiding module towards an enhanced functionality and
potential extension to other domains.
One first goal is to transition the level 1 data fusion manager
towards fuzzy logic (FL) technology. Fuzzy logic [17] provides
the necessary human-like reasoning and handling of uncertainty to
manage and coordinate date fusion components and sensor and
information assets. While some event detection can be
implemented via simple discrete Boolean logic, many onboard
events will require a more robust and flexible means of definition.
This can be achieved by the use ofa FL-based event detector.
On the situation assessment side, one major problem we are
confronted with is that the type of belief network currently used in
COGENT does not model temporal information explicitly. We
currently plan to extend the belief net framework to incorporate a
means for representing time-varying or dynamic spacecraft status
information. The essential idea underlying temporal or dynamic
belief networks (DBN) [10], illustrated in figure 9, is that
knowledge of the previous state of the belief net renders
information about all preceding states irrelevant. In other words,
the current state t, of the belief net is conditionally independent of
all states prior to state t-1 given the state at t-1. (Note that the
nodes of the DBN of figure 9 stand for collections of nodes
having the same timestamp.) The evidence propagation
mechanism in a DBN requires no modifications from that of static
belief nets.
 State EvolutionModel
SensorModel
Figure 9: Temporal (dynamic) Belief Net
We have implemented an argumentation-based decision making
process as detailed above and have tested it with the example in
Table I. The example itself was constructed in consultation with
our Subject Matter Experts (SME). During knowledge elicitation
sessions the evidence attached by the SME to an argument was
not always expressed as a probability value; rather the SME has
frequently used terms like "high", "low", "possible", "likely", etc.
We consider this issue to be an important candidate extension for
the argumentation component.
A key aspect of our decision-aiding process is the ability to
explain the system output to the user by following the steps of the
arguments. We are currently exploring the further integration of
this requirement with the visualization module to develop
visualization formats that depict both the outcome and the
structure .of the arguments, and to allow the operator maximal
insight into the decision-aiding process.
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was performed under contract NAS2-99018 with the
NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The
authors thank Bill Clancey from the Human-Centered Computing
Group at the NASA Ames Research Center, Greg Zacharias, Paul
Gonsalves and Rod Rinkus of Charles River Analytics, and Eva
Hudlicka of Psychometrix for their invaluable contribution and
aid during the project.
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