Air support control officer individual position training simulation

Abstract

The Direct Air Support Center (DASC) is one of the Marine Corps' primary air control agencies and is responsible for the procedural control of aircraft in support of combat operations. The primary controller in the DASC is the air support control officer (ASCO). Current ASCO training is costly, infrequent, and inadequate. This thesis addresses these gaps by using an instructional systems design approach to creating a prototype training environment for ASCO training. First, this thesis conducts a detailed analysis of the ASCO task and a review of current technical capabilities for similar domains. Based on these analyses, key technology features and ASCO tasks are identified and used to generate requirements for the development of the prototype system. Next, based on identified requirements, a prototype virtual-training environment utilizing a speech-to-text engine was designed and developed. Finally, an efficacy evaluation of the system by subject matter experts suggests that a training simulation such as the prototype developed in the course of this work could improve readiness of the DASC community.