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Media Contact:
David Domeshek
508.873.7068
Jim Ong
650.931.2710
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
U.S. NAVY EXTENDS TO THE HIGH SEAS THE USE OF STOTTLER HENKE'S INTELLIGENT
TUTORING SYSTEM FOR TACTICS TRAINING
High classroom acceptance of Stottler Henke's Tactical Action Officer Intelligent Tutoring
System persuades U.S.
Navy to extend its use to onboard use and to request enhancements from Stottler Henke
SAN MATEO, CA, Nov. 18, 1999 –– Stottler Henke Associates'
Tactical Action Officer Intelligent Tutoring System (TAO ITS),
which has been in classroom use at the Surface Warfare Officers
School in Rhode Island since early 1999, is now moving onboard
ship to provide anytime, anywhere learning for one of the
most critical jobs in the U.S. Navy. Furthermore, the U.S.
Navy is extending Stottler Henke's contract to upgrade the TAO ITS software
with additional and more robust instructional strategies;
to add an undersea warfare capability; and to add more ease-of-use
features.
The TAO ITS is software that runs on a PC and has been complementing
the Navy's traditional, classroom-based training by providing
tactical action officers with realistic, practice-based instruction
and individualized feedback. A tactical action officer is
a key decision-maker aboard U.S. warships who controls the
ship's sensors and weapons and directs the movements of the
ship and other support vessels and aircraft. The TAO also
monitors the movements and actions of friendly and enemy ships,
planes, missiles, and submarines in the region. The TAO integrates
this information in real time to form a dynamic tactical picture,
selects appropriate responses, and issues orders.
The TAO ITS software enables students to act as TAOs in simulations
of tactical scenarios. After the student completes each scenario,
the software evaluates the student's actions to determine
tactical principles that the student correctly applied or
failed to apply. These detailed assessments of student performance
are available to both the student and his instructor. This
evaluation is carried out using sophisticated pattern-matching
algorithms defined by tactical experts via graphical user
interface, without programming. The instructor can use a scenariogenerator
included in the software package to create any number of additional
scenarios, defining complexbehaviors for each friendly and
enemy ship and aircraft to create realistic, multi-agent tactical
simulations.
An overwhelming majority of surveyed students who have used
the software have been extremely favorable to its use in the
classroom, and found it to be effective or highly effective.
LCDR Gene Black, Lead AEGIS Instructor at the Surface Warfare
Officers School (SWOS) shares their enthusiasm: "TAO ITS gives
a student tactical action officer ten times the tactical decision-making
opportunity (compared with that provided by) existing training
systems."
"Low-cost, PC-based intelligent tactical simulators, that
can be used anywhere, anytime by individual students thanks
to the addition of intelligent tutoring system technology
provide an enormously effective learning experience when practical
decision-making skills must be mastered," says Richard Stottler,
president of Stottler Henke. "The Navy's experience with the Tactical
Action Officer Intelligent Tutoring System bears this out.
This sort of training software is far superior to that already
being used in industry, and we expect to see diffusion of
this much needed technology from the U.S. military to the
commercial world in the near future."
Founded in 1988, Stottler Henke Associates, Inc.
applies artificial intelligence and other advanced software technologies
to solve problems that defy solution using traditional approaches.
The company delivers intelligent software solutions for education and training,
planning and scheduling, knowledge management and discovery, decision support,
and software development. Stottler Henke's clients include manufacturers,
retailers, educational media companies and government agencies.
Web: http://www.stottlerhenke.com.
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