Argumentation-based Negotiation for Automated Sensor Tasking (ANAST)

Information dominance has become an essential component of military operations with tactical thinking focused on the ‘see first, understand first, act first, finish decisively’ principle. Of critical importance is the military’s ability to use its sensor resources in the most relevant and effective manner possible to maintain information dominance in modern, dynamic tactical situations. Because the number of potential targets greatly exceeds surveillance assets available, it is crucial that there be some means for effective deployment and management of sensor assets throughout an engagement. This requires advanced resource and sensor tasking management capable of addressing scheduling needs in the face of a dynamic tactical situation. Here, we propose a system for Argumentation-based Negotiation for Automated Sensor Tasking (ANAST), an integrated video analysis and sensor management tool, to meet the challenge of this dynamic resource allocation problem. Argumentation-based negotiation addresses general resource allocation through dialogues between multiple competing tasks. Negotiation works continuously, providing dynamic adaptation to changes in the mission environment so that the resulting sensor tasking schedule fully integrates environment changes and the impact of schedule changes within the decision-making process. Furthermore, the incorporation of computer vision-based video analysis automatically identifies moving objects and creates tracking tasks from raw video.