Secure Agent-Based Collaboration Environment

72526S03-I Collaboration on experimental nuclear physics projects is international and requires hundreds of participants. Due to the sheer size and complexity of the experiments, a great deal of the experimental planning, equipment design, preparation, and assembly must be carried out prior to the experimental runs. A low cost method for secure remote communications is needed to allow the collaborators to discuss, analyze, and visualize their work as a group. During run beam-time, collaborators need to be able to remotely monitor, adjust, and correct errors in a near real-time fashion. This project will develop a secure form of global ¿computer teleconferencing.¿ Virtual workrooms and computer representations of scientists and engineers will be used as the collaboration environment. One collaborator can be on one continent and converse, show, argue, and analyze with fellow workers on another. Phase I will lay out the infrastructure concepts, define the key components, and develop a prototype to demonstrate the SACE concept. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: Any geographically dispersed organization or collaboration that has complex systems and data analysis could tailor the SACE concept. Travel costs and time lost to traveling can be drastically reduced. Scientists who could not afford to be stationed at the experiment could be there virtually.