Conversational Control Interface to Facilitate Situational Understanding in a City Surveillance Setting

Daniel Harborne, Dave Braines, Alun D. Preece, Rafal Rzepka

Abstract: In this paper we explore the use of a conversational interface to query a decision support system pro- viding information relating to a city surveillance setting. Specifically, we focus on how the use of a Controlled Natural Language (CNL) can provide a method for processing natural language queries whilst also tracking the context of the conversation with relation to past utterances. Ultimately, we pro- pose our conversational approach leads to a versa- tile tool for providing decision support with a low enough learning curve such that untrained users can operate it either within a central command location or when operating within the field (at the tactical edge). The key contribution of this paper is an il- lustration of applied concepts of CNLs as well as furthering the art of conversational context tracking whilst using such a technique. Keywords: Natural Language Processing (NLP), Conversational Systems, Situational Understanding