Ebook: Human Systems Integration to Enhance Maritime Domain Awareness for Port/Harbour Security

An Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) “Human Systems Integration to Enhance Maritime Domain Awareness for Port/Harbour Security” was held in Opatija, Croatia, December 8-12, 2008.

An ARW is one of many types of funded group support mechanisms established by the NATO Science Committee to contribute to the critical assessment of existing knowledge on new important topics, to identify directions for future research, and to promote close working relationships between scientists from different countries and with different professional experiences.

The NATO Science Committee was approved at a meeting of the Heads of Government of the Alliance in December 1957, subsequent to the 1956 recommendation of “Three Wise Men” – Foreign Ministers Lange (Norway), Martino (Italy) and Pearson (Canada) on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO. The NATO Science Committee established the NATO Science Programme in 1958 to encourage and support scientific collaboration between individual scientists and to foster scientific development in its member states. In 1999, following the end of the Cold War, the Science Programme was transformed so that support is now devoted to collaboration between Partner-country and NATO-country scientists or to contributing towards research support in Partner countries. Since 2004, the Science Programme was further modified to focus exclusively on NATO Priority Research Topics (i.e. Defence Against Terrorism or Countering Other Threats to Security) and also preferably on a Partner country priority area.

The objective of this multidisciplinary workshop was to bring together experts in the domains of Harbour Security and Human Factors, as well as Knowledge Management, Knowledge Exploitation and Decision Support Technologies from the NATO, NATO Partner and Mediterranean Dialogue Countries to discuss the problems of enhancing Maritime Domain Awareness in Harbours through application of Human-System Integration and advanced technologies. The ARW provided an opportunity for exchange of information in harbour security practice and research in the areas of cognitive engineering and advanced information processing.

To facilitate information exchange and a better understanding of mutual problems, the ARW comprised presentations as well as brainstorming sessions in the form of Working Group discussions.

Presentations by domain, human factors, and technology experts were devoted to domain understanding, and the theory and practice of designing decision support systems for harbour security and integration of human factors in such systems.

The workshop also included three break-out sessions, in which the smaller working groups of mixed expertise held brainstorming sessions. These working groups investigated:

1. Process, organizations, and technology requirements to meet challenges of the seaport infrastructure security;

2. Methodology for a human/machine information system to support harbour security;

3. Regulations, infrastructure, stakeholder responsibilities, as well as technology requirements to meet challenges of cargo security.

Through lectures and working group discussions, the participants of this workshop were able to enhance understanding of the problems, approaches, methodology and technical language used in various disciplines related to designing harbour security systems. These discussions were built upon lessons learned during the previous ARW (ARW981703) on Data Fusion Technologies for Harbour Protection, Tallinn, Estonia, June 27 – July 1, 2005.

This volume consists of two sections. Section one includes papers by lecturers, and Section two contains the reports developed by the working groups.

Lecture topics were devoted to the discussion of challenges and possible approaches to:

– Effective representation of domain characteristics and user requirements;

– Modelling of human systems, their behaviour, and their impact on port security;

– Information modelling, characterization, and processing for situation awareness and decision support;

– Designing the situation and threat assessment systems.

Participants representing Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the USA contributed in this ARW. A distinguished group of experts was assembled, and the technical program was organized with the generous and very capable assistance of the Organizing Committee composed of Dr. Elisa Shahbazian (Canada), Dr. Damir Zec (Croatia), Dr. Galina Rogova (USA), Dr. Eloi Bossé (Canada), Darren P. Wilson (USA), and Ms. Hasmik Atoyan (Canada).

The organizers offer their deep appreciation to the ARW participants, who devoted so much of their time and talents to make the ARW successful.

We are grateful to the NATO Security Through Science Programme, which provided important financial support. The organisers are especially grateful to Prof. Fernando Carvalho Rodrigues, head of the Human and Societal Dynamics Panel (HSD), whose suggestions for providing a systemic approach to the discussions and the technical program contributed to the success of the ARW. In addition, the following sources made significant contributions: the Defence Research and Development Canada in Valcartier, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate; the Department of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia; the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of Université de Montreal Canada; Encompass Consulting, USA; and OODA Technologies, Inc., Canada.

We would like to thank the management of Hotel Ambassador in Opatija, Croatia for ensuring that all the needs of the ARW were satisfied to the fullest.

A very special acknowledgement goes to Ani Shahbazian who undertook the very challenging task of performing the English Language editing of all the lecturers’ manuscripts and producing a camera-ready document for the publisher.

And, finally, all of our thanks go to the people of Croatia, who certainly displayed, in every way, their warmth and hospitality.

Elisa Shahbazian

Montreal, Canada

Galina Rogova

Honeoye Falls, USA

October 2009

The paper summarizes the currently existing regulations and measures to ensure maritime security in the European Union, United States and Internationally, and makes observations regarding the implementation and the consistency of implementation of these measures between all nations involved in the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The paper specifically mentions issues with the supply chain management of container and cargo transport that are hard to manage due to multidisciplinary and multi-jurisdictional nature of the ports. The paper then describes and refers to a number of recommendations and amendments to current policy and procedures that will correct many of existing deficiencies. It stresses the importance of the development of a Community security framework for the supply chain instead of opting for a patchwork approach.

After 9/11, the world has seen a dramatic change in the nature of threat, moving from a static, clearly identified possible menace to an asymmetric one where rules are unclear and unpredictable. Example of such asymmetric threats include: various terrorist acts, such as naval sea mines, improvised explosive devices (C-IED), weapons of mass destruction (WMD), suicide attacks, as well as illegal migration, narco-traffic, etc., which can dramatically and quickly capture international political attention, providing more and more sensitive challenges to master. It is therefore necessary to establish balanced and feasible defence measures in order to adequately respond to threats in the global requirement for security. This paper describes various common NATO initiatives launched to jointly reduce vulnerability and enhance security in ports, including joint policy as well as new technology development.

Maritime security faces a wide range of challenges in addressing contemporary threats. The safety of trading flows is a pivotal element of the current international order and countermeasures derived from open-minded analysis may contribute to countering and reducing terrorist and criminal maritime menaces.

This paper presents the preliminary results of a pilot study in an ongoing project that analyzes past maritime security incidents using graphic representation models. This pilot study aims to identify some of the active and latent conditions that allow maritime security incidents to occur, to conduct a macro-level analysis of security incidents, and to determine the feasibility of adapting the AcciMap as a tool for maritime security management. The method employed in this pilot study is the application of the concepts and principles formulated by Rasmussen and Svedung and the adaptation of their AcciMap graphic representation model to the 1999 hijacking of the general-cargo vessel Alondra Rainbow. The materials used are information gathered from official and journalistic investigations conducted into the security incident. As part of its results, this paper presents a SecInciMap of the hijacking and identifies actors and latent and active conditions relevant to the incident. The paper’s preliminary conclusion is that the adaptation of the AcciMap to the context of maritime security is feasible and could play an important role in a proactive maritime security regime.

The paper deals with the implementation of security measures in small to medium developing countries. Based on Croatian experience, it examines possibilities for efficiently combining security measures that should be implemented in SOLAS ships and ISPS compliant ports with those appropriate to non-SOLAS ships and ports where measures defined in the ISPS Code are not mandatory. Finally, it examines measures promoting a more extensive use of information technologies, particularly information fusion and dedicated decision support systems, in order to enhance the level of maritime security and protection from illegal activities at sea and in ports.

Human Systems Integration (HSI) in port/harbour security systems is directed at optimizing the performance of security personnel in identifying threats, avoiding threats, defending assets, establishing and monitoring barriers, repelling an attack, and minimizing damage. The goal of HSI in this context is to optimize performance of these personnel by providing them with efficient and effective technology, weapons, information, knowledge, decision aiding, and procedures to defeat the threat. There are challenges, however, in applying HSI to port/harbour security system design. Some challenges include: (1) designing human machine interfaces to support surveillance vigilance and situation awareness, (2) reduction of the incidence and impact of human error, (3) reduction of human workload, (4) support of decision making and provision of decision support , (5) designing displays that are intuitive and integrated, and (6) reduction of risks associated with denying access or engaging an adversary. This paper provides a rationale for the importance of considering these challenges when developing system performance requirements to be incorporated into the design and development process for the purpose of ensuring mission success.

Decision Support Systems help human operators to cope with large amount of information and make decisions. However, in complex dynamic environments, automation can create different types of uncertainties in the system, and consequently, in the mind of the operator. A comprehensive understanding of the types of uncertainties in complex environments and their impact on human decision-making is essential for designing safe and efficient systems. In this paper, we analyze and identify different types of uncertainties that could surface during human-automation interaction. We will consider the problem of uncertainty from the human factor perspective and propose guidelines for designing systems that will support human operators in performing their tasks efficiently while coping with uncertainties.

The paper presents a harbour protection system developed within a national project, and studies of human systems behaviour and impact on port security architecture. The work includes practical recommendations in the following areas: (1) Networks and centralized organizations in a complex conflict environment; (2) Distribution of responsibility in a multi-level hierarchical organization (command and control dilemmas); (3) The “multi-directional” subordination problem (limits of subordination); (4) The function of the “hidden commander” in a system (is he\she ready and is she\he conscious).

Context and human factors may be essential to improving measurement processes for each sensor, and the particular context of each sensor could be used to obtain a global definition of context in multisensor environments. Reality may be captured by human sensorial domain based only on machine stimulus and then generate a feedback which can be used by the machine at its different processing levels, adapting its algorithms and methods accordingly. Reciprocally, human perception of the environment could also be modelled by context in the machine. In the proposed model, both machine and man take sensorial information from the environment and process it cooperatively until a decision or semantic synthesis is produced. In this work, we present a model for context representation and reasoning to be exploited by fusion systems. In the first place, the structure and representation of contextual information must be determined before being exploited by a specific application. Under complex circumstances, the use of context information and human interaction can help to improve a tracking system’s performance (for instance, video-based tracking systems may fail when dealing with object interaction, occlusions, crosses, etc.).

In complex environments like harbour security, where human errors may have tragic consequences, decision support systems are essential to execute complex tasks. This paper discusses critical issues in the design of computer-based support systems that can support operators/decision-makers to better understand the situation, select a course of action, monitor the execution of operations, and evaluate the results. These aids will support decision-makers to cope with uncertainty and disorder and to help people exploit technology at critical times and places in order to ensure success in operations. Because the human cannot be completely replaced or removed from the execution of these tasks, the interaction and coordination between the human and the automated support systems become crucial. In emergency situations, that would necessitate the ability to coordinate multi-agency and multi-national operations, advanced decision support , knowledge exploitation, information fusion and management tools can significantly improve the ability to respond to such emergencies. A technological perspective alone has led system designers to propose solutions by providing operators with Decision Support Systems (DSS). These DSSs should aid the operators to achieve the appropriate Situation Awareness (SA) state for their decision-making activities, and to support the execution of the resulting actions. The lack of knowledge in cognitive engineering has, in the past, jeopardized the design of helpful computer-based aids aimed at complementing and supporting human cognitive tasks. Moreover, this lack of knowledge has, most of the time, created new trust problems in the designed tools. Providing the appropriate level of support thus requires balancing the human factor perspective with that of the system designer, and coordinating the efforts in designing a cognitively fitted system to support decision-makers.

Harbour protection requires monitoring the global maritime domain for building a dynamic situational picture in order to increase the ability of the decision makers to predict threat and manage operations to mitigate their possible impact. Effective situation assessment and decision making call for an integrated human-machine information environment, in which some processes are best executed automatically while for others the judgment and guidance of human experts and end-users are critical. Thus decision making in the integrated information environment requires constant information exchange between human and automated agents that utilize operational data, data obtained from sensors, intelligence reports, and open source information. The quality of decision making strongly depends on the quality of such input data as well as the information produced by automated agents and human decision makers. Designing the methods of representing and incorporating information quality into this environment is a relatively new and a rather difficult problem. The paper discusses major challenges and suggests some approaches to address this problem.

Decision makers in defence and security require timely and accurate situational awareness to prevent or defeat evolving threats. Particularly in the area of unconventional conflicts or homeland security, e.g. in the fight against organized crime and terrorism, heterogeneous and complex non-military factors influence the situation. To be able to automatically support human operators in the intelligence processing, a sound understanding of the reasoning of operators in the human dominated area of heuristic information, processing and fusion is necessary. The main intelligence processing steps, which are not dependent of the area of application, are described in this paper. Large volumes of information and data from various types of sources and agencies have to be processed in order to gain an appropriate awareness of the situation. Structured data is a necessary precondition for any automated processing. Therefore, a particular attention is paid to the collation step, which is the structuring of all incoming information. Special tools supporting military operators in structuring text information are presented as an example of the actual interactive approach to coping with semantic information. A second challenging aspect of the automation of information fusion is the heuristic nature of human decision making. The human method of default reasoning, based on knowledge about the behaviour and structure of adversary factions, can be used for a model-based approach to support the transformation of information into intelligence. For civil security, as in (air)ports or public transportation, near real time data and information processing for situation awareness is more important than long-term reconnaissance for threat detection. The integrated processing of sensor data and background information based on available knowledge about relevant factors of the situation, including tactical and operational behaviour information of the objects under concern, will improve sensor data processing algorithms and contribute to tactical intelligence for threat detection and situational awareness as a necessary precondition for decision support. HAMLeT, a demonstration system for the localization of hazardous material and person tracking, is presented as an example of support for security personnel monitoring an access control areas.

Context is used in data fusion to provide expectations and to constrain processing. It also is used to infer or refine inferences of desired information (“problem variables”) on the basis of other available information (“context variables”). Context is used in refining data alignment and association as well as in target and situation state estimation. Relevant contexts are often not self-evident, but must be discovered or selected as a means to problem-solving. Therefore, context exploitation involves an integration of data fusion with planning and control functions. Discovering and selecting useful context variables is an abductive data fusion/ management problem that can be characterized in a utility/uncertainty framework. An adaptive evidence-accrual inference method – originally developed for Scene Understanding – is presented, whereby context variables are selected on the basis of (a) their utility in refining explicit problem variables (expressed as mutual information), (b) the probability of evaluating these variables to within a given accuracy, given candidate system actions (data collection, mining or processing), and (c) the cost of such actions.

In this paper, we propose a framework for the assessment, interpretation and understanding of situations in a visual surveillance scenario. An upper level processing layer exploits abductive reasoning over data provided by low level detection, classification and tracking algorithms. The system discussed is Description Logics driven and benefits from the computability of first-order logic semantics together with the manageability characteristics of ontology based systems. Event occurrence frequency is taken into account to focus on “anomalous facts,” by combining a priori knowledge, provided by domain experts, with statistical information incrementally gathered through the assessment of the environment under surveillance. The framework is aimed at supplying security system operators with a set of the most probable explanations of observed facts to improve and speed up the decision process.

Maritime surveillance of coastal regions involves processing of data from a large number of heterogeneous surveillance sources. The generation of effective Maritime Domain Awareness requires that the tracks from these sources be fused. The vast majority of track pairs in an area of interest do not represent the same vessel. These fusion candidate pairs can often be rejected based on their geo-feasibility. This paper presents the geo-feasibility concept and its role in track-to-track fusion support in an extremely heterogeneous maritime surveillance environment.

In all emergency management phases, knowledge of human behaviour is critical to the development of effective emergency policies, plans and training programs. In the aftermath of a catastrophic event, when technical assets are unavailable or have been destroyed, human behaviour – and often, human behaviour alone – determines the speed and efficacy of disaster recovery efforts.

In this paper, a network analysis based model that focuses on finding the relations among individual and non-individual supply chain actors and their informational attributes is presented. The model provides an intelligible view of the structure of the supply chain network, by which it is possible to describe the contribution of network position to the relevance, influence, prominence and, most importantly, the power of an actor in a network. Mathematical coefficients measuring these aspects and their interrelations are derived. Case studies are presented to showcase the tool’s capabilities for researching threats in the supply chain.

Maritime Situation Awareness involves keeping track of and understanding hundreds of pieces of information. Automated higher-level data fusion (Level-2/3 fusion) and resource management can provide valuable assistance to commanders and analysts who need to achieve situation awareness. InformLab was created to help with this task. It is an advanced simulation framework that addresses higher-level fusion concepts for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of Network Enabled Operations focused on Coastal Wide Area Surveillance applications. The testbed allows for experimenting with higher-level distributed hierarchical information fusion, dynamic resource management, and configuration management with multiple constraints on the resources and their communications networks. The testbed provides for evaluation of a range of control strategies from independent platform search, through various levels of platform collaboration, up to a centralized control of search platforms.

The paper addresses the issue of context-aware operational decision support in emergency situations. A decision support system developed for this purpose is implemented as a network of a set of Web-services. Web-services are designed to organize a service network according to context represented by a “problem model,” which specifies problems to be solved in a particular kind of emergency situation. Context representation is based on knowledge extracted from the application domain (application ontology) and is formalized by a set of constraints. The purpose of the service network is to provide a decision support system with contextualized information from diverse information sources and to solve the problems specified in the context . The paper presents the process of designing an application ontology for the emergency management domain from Semantic Web Ontologies, and a hybrid technology for context-aware operational decision support. The technology is based on ontology management, context management, constraint satisfaction, and Web Services. Application of the above ideas is illustrated by an example of a decision support system for real-time resource management in logistics operations for fire response.

The NATO ARW Breakout Group One addressed the representation of the problem space in terms of its three dimensions, namely Process, Organization and Technology Requirements in order to achieve domain awareness with respect to harbour protection.

The NATO ARW Breakout Group Two outlined a methodology for analyzing threat situations and for defining requirements for human/machine information systems to respond to potential and actualized threats.

The NATO ARW Breakout Group Three discussed challenges of cargo security in view of regulations, infrastructure, stakeholder responsibilities, and elaborated on technology requirements to meet these challenges.