Event and Temporal Reasoning Ontology

This research will develop a general ontology of time and associated algorithms for performing inferences on temporal data that conforms to the ontology. We intend to start with the temporal constructs currently contained in the JC3IEDM and propose extensions to them that facilitate temporal reasoning about actions and events over time. We will express the JC3IEDM temporal constructs and their extensions using the Web Ontology Language (OWL). Our ontology is expected to include an exact representation of dates and times that is compatible with efficient calendric calculations. It will also contain abstract temporal constructs that represent time points, intervals, and durations. These constructs will be allowed to exist within several different structures of time, including: linear time, left-branching time (for diagnostic analyses), and right-branching time (for predictive analyses). Our temporal ontology development will leverage the existing JC3IEDM implementation contained in the I2WD Fusion Exploitation Framework (FEF) developed by PFI. We also propose the development of a software prototype – the Temporal Constraint Reasoning Engine (TCRE). The TCRE will make use of the FEF specific and general fusion APIs to demonstrate how advanced temporal constraint processing can be used to perform multi-sensor fusion.