Rapid Formation of Virtual Organizations Using Modeling and Multi Agent System Technology

Perceptronics Solutions, Inc. and the USC Computer Science Department present this proposal to develop an adaptive software system that will automatically form 'virtual' human networks. Our objective is to develop an automated system capable of: (1) identifying groups of people who should be in contact with each other by virtue of their parent organization's basic mission, that is, the long term problems it intends to solve; (2) organizing ad hoc groups of people to solve a specific problem encountered by the organization, taking into account organizational structures and individuals' positions in that structure; or (3) identifying new areas of organizational capability, or problem solving ability, based on the observed interests of the organization's members. Specifically, we will focus our Phase I efforts on automatically forming a problem-oriented virtual network in a dynamic military organization. The advantage of this approach is: (1) it directly addresses the military application, which has top priority; and (2) the solution will hold for less demanding applications as well, such as more static military and non-military organizations including civil agencies, companies, universities, and so forth.