RTRACE - Real-Time Reconfiguration and Control Environment

Naval intelligence centers validate, correlate, and analyze information from various sources (cryptologic sensors, tactical airborne reconnaissance, units in contact with the enemy, etc.) to generate Indications and Warning (I&W) in support of friendlyoperations. Increasingly, naval intelligence centers are deployed in littoral regions around the world. The close proximity of littoral threats significantly decreases warning and reaction time for friendly forces, while anticipated reductions inshipboard manning and increases in the range and quantity of available sensor data further exacerbate workload for intelligence personnel. New information fusion technology is required to help intelligence analysts meet these challenges.Accordingly, we offer a mixed-initiative knowledge-based approach to multi-source intelligence analysis in which user-specified rules and scripts are employed to infer I&W from large volumes of sensor data. To ensure scalability, the proposed systemoperates in three stages: data transformation, trend identification, and script/plan recognition. Data transformation performs statistical analyses and generates potentially useful abstractions of sensor data. Trend identification monitors theseabstractions for user-specified triggering events. Finally, the script/plan recognition step generates I&W by matching these triggers to user-specified scripts for operationally significant activities.The technology developed under this program will immediately benefit cryptanalysts at naval intelligence centers, but also has ready application to intrusion detection for defensive IW, and to multi-source intelligence analysis for DoD and law enforcement.