Transcript Semantic Interoperability

Perspectives on the
Need for Semantic
Technology
James Milligan
Information Directorate
Air Force Research Laboratory
[email protected]
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Presentation Outline
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Provide some examples of military problems
and needs ripe for semantic technology
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Describe some AFRL activities making use of
semantic technology as part of the solution
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Conclusions
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Heterogeneous Enterprise
Problems
• Achieving and maintaining systems interoperability
– Incompatible data, data models, services, and applications.
• Challenges exist in sharing information across domains
– Insufficient information sharing capabilities that allow
effective information exchange across multiple communities
of interest, security enclaves, organizational boundaries, and
infrastructures.
• Policy conflicts can hamper efficiency and effectiveness of joint
and coalition operations
– Insufficient means to encode policies for semi-autonomous
interpretation, negotiation, enactment, and enforcement.
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Heterogeneous Enterprise
Needs
• Systems that interoperate (even in the face of change)
– Compatible data, data models, services, and applications.
• Cross-domain information sharing
– Information sharing capabilities that allow effective
information exchange across multiple communities of
interest.
• Policy specification and enforcement
– Tools and mechanisms to encode policies for semiautonomous interpretation, negotiation, enactment, and
enforcement.
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Policy Enforced Interoperable
Communities of Interest
Info
COI
Information
Space
COI
Information
Space
COI
Information
Space
COI
Information
Space
Theater
Region (PACOM)
Region (NORTHCOM)
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Situational Awareness
Problems
• Maintaining situational awareness is difficult if the necessary
collection assets cannot be rapidly deployed and connected
– Inability to autonomously manage and network theatre assets
for rapid situational awareness.
• Correlating and integrating vast amounts intelligence data
remains a hard problem
– Particularly as new sensor systems and platforms come online, it is difficult to effectively correlate, disambiguate,
deconflict and combine sensor and human intelligence data
into a common contextual model.
• Human interpretation of intelligence information is time
consuming and sometimes error-prone
– Insufficient ability to rapidly interpret vast amounts of
intelligence information.
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Situational Awareness
Needs
• Enabling situational awareness
– Ability to autonomously manage and network theatre assets
for rapidly achieving situational awareness.
• Intelligence data fusion
– Ability to effectively correlate, disambiguate, and combine
sensor and human intelligence data into a common context
and information model.
• Rapid interpretation of intelligence
– Ability to rapidly interpret vast amounts of intelligence
information.
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Intelligence Collection and Analysis
Enable
Fuse
Interpret
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Effects-Based Operations
Problems
• Ensuring that critical command and control systems continue to
operate as needed
– Information systems require a high level of human
intervention to keep them operational during mission
preparation and execution.
• It is difficult to synchronize the application of diverse, distributed
forces in time-critical situations
– Execution management capabilities are challenged in near
real-time conditions in order to dominate an adversary and
achieve the desired effects.
• Rapidly assessing that combat operations are achieving the
desired effects is a challenge
– Real-time effects-based assessment of combat operations is
problematic.
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Effects-Based Operations
Needs
• Command and control systems resource management
– Self-aware systems that can learn, adapt, and heal
themselves.
• Rapid employment of agile forces
– Near real-time, dynamic synchronization of the employment of
distributed forces to dominate an adversary and achieve
desired effects.
• Real-time effects assessment
– Provisioning of real-time effects-based assessment of combat
operations.
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C2, Synchronization, Assessment
ConstellationNet
NCES Collaboration
Service
Weapons
Collaboration
Effects Assessment
CAOC
Subscribers
Notification
ENEMY
TANK
NCES Messaging
Service
NCES Messaging
Service
CAOC
CAOC – Combined Air and Space Operations Center
NCES – Net-centric Enterprise Services
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AFRL Semantic Web
Technologies & Applications
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Enabling Technologies
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Ontologies
Defense Applications
– Net-Centric Operations (e.g., NCES)
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Knowledge Bases
Artificial Intelligence
Expert Systems
Intelligent Agents
Machine Inferencing, Reasoning and
Learning
– Formal Methods
– W3C Standards, Protocols, and
Reference Implementations
Service Discovery, Composition, Mediation,
Workflow Orchestration, and Execution
– Natural Language Processing
– Systems and Information Modeling,
Integration, and Interoperability
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Knowledge Acquisition/Representation
Cognitive Systems
Modeling and Simulation
Policy Representation and Enforcement
Collaboration
Cross-domain Information Sharing
Resource Management
Effects Based Operations
Adversarial Modeling/Cyber Operations
Decision Support/Planning/Predictive
Environments (e.g., CPE)
– Multi-Platform/Source Intelligence Fusion
– Homeland Security
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Representative AFRL Semantic
Research and Applications
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Information Transformation
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Anticipatory Environments
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Distributed enterprise object
models
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Integrating Human Centeredness
in the Design of
Collaborative Systems
Cross-Domain Information Access
(CDIA)
Command and Control Resource
Management System
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Link Discovery & Pattern Learning
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SIGINT Sensor Management
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Semantic-based Policy Enforcement
Effects Based Operations
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OWL Policy Language
Development
Command and Control Mobility
Projects
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Ontology for Scenario
Generation SBIR
NeXt Generation (XG) Program
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Cyber Situational Understanding
(Event Pattern Ontologies SBIR)
NETWAR: Strategic Attack Prediction
and Detection
Heterogeneous Urban RSTA—
Reconnaissance, Surveillance,
Target Acquisition—Team (HURT)
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Foundation technologies
Defensive Cyber Operations
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Dynamic Air & Space Effects
Based Assessment (DASEA)
Collaboration
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Semantic Interoperability
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Intelligent Semantic NOTAM
Query Capability
Formal Methods
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Representative AFRL Efforts
Employing Semantic Technologies
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Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs)
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Semantic Interoperability
Rapid Processing of Intelligence Data
Commander’s Predictive Environment (CPE)
Infospace Concept Exploration and Development
Multi-Platform SIGINT Fusion and ISR Management
Tangram: A Fully Automated, Continuously Operating, Intelligence Analysis Support
System
– Intelligence Fusion for Targets-Under-Trees
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FY06 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Program topics:
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AF06-047 Semantic Interoperability of C2 Tools and Technologies
AF06-049 Real-Time Effects Assessment Management System
AF06-052 Semantically Correct Interoperability of Executable Architectures
AF06-053 Knowledge-based Technologies to Support Predictive Mission Awareness
AF06-060 Enabling Monitoring and Analysis of Concept-Based Event Information in Text
AF06-061 Multi-INT Ontology Mediation Services
AF06-066 Systems-of-Systems Data Utilization Patterns
AF06-077 Command Decision Support and Explanation from Fused Structured and
Unstructured Information Sources
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Conclusions
• Semantic technology holds great promise in
addressing many of the problems and needs identified
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Additional investments are needed to mature the
technology and make it easier to use and deploy in
military applications
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An incremental approach toward widespread adoption
seems likely – some semantic technologies will gain
traction sooner than others
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We (academia, industry, government) need to do it
together, and progress is rapidly being made from a
historical perspective
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