Agent-Based Knowledge Enablers for the Unit of Action

As the vision of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) becomes reality in the Future Force, it is clear that trading steel (platform survivability) for information represents a true revolution in military affairs. A principal set of goals is to eliminate archaic information stovepipes, speed the flow of information to the end user, and rapidly increase the rate at which data is transformed into militarily significant and decision-centered information. Improving a commander's ability to collect, process, manage and answer the critical information requirements (CCIRs) associated with a Unit of Action (UA) provides a uniquely challenging opportunity. Given the risks of information overload and high workload, the goal of this system is to assist the commander in a commander-driven, purpose-oriented, knowledge-based fashion. This capability will allow for a continuous, evolving, and collaborative process that will reduce information and cognitive overload, increase the number of options considered, and reduce the time and effort spent planning while simultaneously improving decisions. We propose to combine state of the art techniques in multi-agent service-based cognitive architectures, knowledge abstraction layers semantically organized into ontologies, and intelligent user interfaces to create a system that will demonstrate how information age transformation can enable fundamental improvements to CCIR monitoring in NCW.