THE PURPOSE OF THIS SBIR IS TO INVESTIGATE AND DESCRIBE AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM WHICH WILL ENABLE THE SHIP COMMANDING OFFICER TO OBTAIN PRECISE, RELEVANT DATA IN DECISION-ORIENTED FORMATS.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS SBIR IS TO INVESTIGATE AND DESCRIBE AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM WHICH WILL ENABLE THE SHIP COMMANDING OFFICER TO OBTAIN PRECISE, RELEVANT DATA IN DECISION-ORIENTED FORMATS. THE CRITICAL REQUIREMENT FOR THIS SYSTEM IS THAT IT OPERATE IN A HIGHLY DECENTRALIZED, HETEROGENEOUS INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT. IN PHASE I OPERATION, FUNCTIONAL AND PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS WILL BE DESCRIBED AND THE OVERALL ARCHITECTURE WILL BE FORMULATED. THE KEY INNOVATION WILL BE TO COUPLE A GRAPHICAL INTERFACE TO SPATIAL DATA WITH A DATA FUSION SYSTEM. TWO DATABASE ARCHITECTURES WILL BE EVALUATED, THE COMPOSITE APPROACH AND THE FEDERATED MODEL. THE SYSTEM WILL EMBED A KNOWLEDGE BASE WHICH (1) RELATES QUERIES TO INFORMATION SOURCES RESIDING IN EXTERNAL DATABASES (2) CONTAINS THE PROCEDURES FOR ACCESSING THE DATA. AS CONSULTANT, COMPUTER CORPORATION OF AMERICA WILL INVESTIGATE THE FEASIBILITY OF BUILDING ON ITS PREVIOUS WORK ON SPATIAL DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (SDMS) FOR THE USS CARL VINSON, AND MULTIBASE.