Projects: COACH

COACH

Collaborative Agent-Based Control and Help System
U.S. Navy Equipment Repair Tool

COACH is a decision-support system that applies the Integrated Cooperative Decision-Making (ICDM) framework to the area of Equipment Repair. It employs expert agents and case-based reasoning technology for analysis, evaluation, and guidance of major equipment repairs.

COACH incorporates a generic representation of repair situations such as computer hardware, medical and military equipment, and heavy machinery. During a mission critical situation, a repairperson may not have the proper expertise needed for a task that demands immediate response. COACH combines features such as Internet access, video conferencing, whiteboard drawing capabilities, and intelligent computer agents to connect a repairperson to useful information sources.

COACH uses collaborative agents with knowledge in specific domains such as part availability, human resource collaboration, tool availability, document search, and equipment history. These agents create a partnership and collaborate with expert human staff members during an equipment repair situation. Agents respond quickly to changing circumstances and provide alerts, inferences, and recommendations to decision makers. This expert-agent technology creates realistic and timely decision solutions to complex problems.

As an experimental decision-support system, COACH is expected to play an integral part in the Navy's military equipment repair program. This expert-agent technology is the first generation decision-support tool utilizing collaborative assistance technology.