Fast Connectivity for Coalition Agents Program (FastC²AP)

Program Description

The Fast Connectivity for Coalitions and Agents (FastC2AP) system was designed and developed by the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to assist U.S. Navy users in conducting Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). FastC2AP is an easy-to-use, Web portal-based system designed to enhance the ability of Maritime Fusion Centers and other MDA watch standers to more easily identify trends and detect anomalies.

HSI Challenge

The complex vessel monitoring tasks performed as part of MDA require that the FastC2AP system enables operators to quickly, easily, and accurately identify, track, and respond to a wide range of vessel activities. This capability requires an easy to use interface, immediately accessible, context-sensitive help, and a clear concept of operations (CONOPS).

Approach

PSE performed knowledge engineering with users at C6F to generate recommendations for system capabilities, create operationally-based training (briefs, quick reference guides, and multi-media products), conduct operational assessments of prototyped and installed systems, provide HCI feedback, and develop user CONOPs.

Solution

PSE provided operational context-based training and system design recommendations that became part of an improved version of the FastC2AP system. PSE’s operational assessments supplied valuable feedback to further improve FastC2AP and PSE’s training materials helped operators gain competence with FastC2AP’s features and functionalities.

Benefits

Using a variety of highly-configurable software agents, FastC2AP dramatically increases the number of vessels and amount of vessel data an operator is able to gather, monitor, and evaluate, and it automatically alerts the operator when a vessel meets user-defined criteria. Once configured by members of the watch team or their supervisors, FastC2AP agents operate automatically to analyze past and current vessel data for unexpected, unusual or illegal behavior. Examples of activities that FastC2AP can help identify include:

• Weapons smuggling
• Illegal fishing/fishery violations
• Terrorist incidents
• Illegal migrant activity
• Smuggling of drugs and other contraband
• Acts of piracy
• Incursions into restricted areas/territorial waters/economic exclusion zones
• Unexplained changes in a vessel’s flag, owner, call sign, etc.

View a sample of the FastC²AP interactive multimedia training program