Distributed situation awareness: Applications and implications in defence

Situation awareness is a critical consideration in defence system design and evaluation. Despite almost two decades of research in the area, however, attempts to describe team situation awareness remain ambiguous. This article presents a model of distributed situation awareness, which uses the sub-concepts of compatible situation awareness and situation awareness transactions, to explain how teams develop and maintain situation awareness during collaborative activities. In addition, an accompanying modelling approach, the propositional network methodology, is outlined and demonstrated. Following this, a case study undertaken in the land warfare domain, involving a situation awareness-based analysis of a newly developed digital mission support system is summarised. In closing, the implications of both the model and case study findings are discussed with regard to the design of future defence systems.