International Workshop on Knowledge-Based Planning
for Coalition Forces
(KSCO-1999)
Supported by The Technical Cooperation Program,
European Office of Aerospace Research and Development,
Air Force Office of Scientific Research,
United State Air Force Research Laboratory/Information Directorate,
Rome Research Site,
Defense Advance Research Projects Agency,
and the UK Defence Evaluation Research Agency.
Organised as part of the contribution of the
DARPA/Air Force Research
Laboratory (Rome) Planning Initiative (ARPI)
by the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute, University of Edinburgh
Proceedings and Report
- The working group reports are
available here.
- The presentations given at the workshop are available here.
- A paper included in the
proceedings describing the TTCP Binni Coalition Scenario is available
here
An international workshop on knowledge-based planning for coalition
forces was held in Edinburgh, Scotland on May 10th and 11th, 1999.
This workshop was sponsored by the following organizations: The
Technical Cooperation Program, European Office of Aerospace Research
and Development, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Information
Directorate of the US Air Force Research Laboratory, UK Defence
Evaluation Research Agency, and DARPA. The goal of the workshop was
to identify several near and long term technical challenges and
operational opportunities in the application of knowledge based
systems to coalition operations. It was intended to begin to build a
community interested in working together to develop the use of
knowledge systems to improve support for coalition operations.
The meeting brought together 60 people from the US, UK, Canada, and
Australia. There was a good balance of Operational, Technical, and
Programmatic perspectives. About half of the workshop was spent in
working groups, which were organized around three topics, Coalition
Operations Other Than War (OOTW), Coalition Command and Control, and
Coalition Logistics. A key idea coming out of the workshop was the
notion of a Coalition Operation Experiment (CoaX). A CoaX would
involve both an operations-based experiment plus a technical workshop
to capture the results and knowledge gained. Three technology areas
that were suggested by multiple groups to be part of a CoaX are
collaboration technologies, brokering technology and
knowledge-based representations.
The TTCP representatives that attended the workshop felt that this was
an effort that could help them achieve their goals.
A group (KSCO) has been formed to promote
multinational and multi-agency exploration of some of the issues
raised and to build cooperative links between those interested. An
early focus to report progress and to build upon the work begun in
Edinburgh is to be a second workshop, probably associated with a
meeting of TTCP in the US in May 2000.
An informal group met on 12th May 1999 after the workshop to
consider ways in which work on Coalition Operations could be
continued. A Working Group on Knowledge Systems for Coalition
operations (KSCO) was formed. More details are available
here.
Workshop Goal
The goal of this workshop was to identify several near and long term
technical challenges in the application of knowledge-based planning to
the coalition command and control environment. These technical
challenges are intended to become the foundation for a future collaborative
coalition planning research programme.
Workshop Description
A workshop to bring together the community of international researchers,
developers, government representatives and military personnel to discuss
emerging advanced planning technology and how it might be further developed
to support military coalition planning and execution. While other technical
challenges such as security, and release of information exist, this workshop
focused solely on the use of Knowledge-based systems during the planning
process of coalition operations to transcend cultural, language, and Rules
of Engagement (ROE) barriers among coalition partners.
Many current and an increasing number of future military missions
will involve multi-national coalition forces which must be rapidly drawn
together, flexibly led, responsively deployed and agile to address a wide
variety of dynamically evolving tasks. Modern military operations involve
defensive, policing and humanitarian missions both locally or in far-flung
regions of the world. Many missions are conducted as part of a joint force
with other nations to achieve objectives set by the international community.
In these missions there is a need for agility, responsiveness and effectiveness
in the use of limited resources to achieve complex and multiple objectives.
There are frequent changes of requirements and the situation is often fluid.
Effective means to clearly define and relay the mission objectives through
to planning and logistics support staff and then on to the coalition partners
and personnel in the field are essential.
Planning is a core competence and a core task for any organisation -
including the military. But, planning should not be seen as detached
from execution, monitoring and control. It is a critical process that
allows one to create and manipulate the context for execution
(hopefully to one's own advantage) and a process that must be intimately
involved with execution.
Coalition C3I Key Issues (from LeRoy Pearce, Canadian MOD)
- Different doctrine, decision making, rules of engagement and, in
general, mission "agendas"
- Different technology skill and equipment levels
- Questionable compatibility of respective national information systems
- Limited models for coalition force operations
- Command authorities - agreement and transfers
- Information systems resource sharing agreements & capacity
- Different interpretation of situational information
- Lack of compatible security architectures
Organizers
- Roberto Desimone (DERA, Malvern)
- Jerry Dussault (AFRL, TTCP Representative)
- Dan Fayette (AFRL/IFT)
- Scott Fouse (ISX Corporation)
- Barry McKinney (EOARD)
- Rick Metzger (AFRL/IFTB)
- Austin Tate (AIAI, University of Edinburgh)
Resources
All resources made available here are unrestricted, but are copyright
of the individual authors or organizations involved. Those authors or
organizations assert copyright over these materials, even in cases
where an explicit copyright notice is not included in the file
provided. Please do not make copies or use the material except for the
purposes of this workshop without the express written content of the
copyright owner.
Scenario Sources
- Via Mr. Jens Jensen, US PACOM
- Via Prof. Austin Tate, ARPI/SUO -
Other Resources
- The Technical Cooperation
Program (TTCP) Web Site
- Via Dr. J. LeRoy Pearce - Coalition Operations in the Global Village
- Coalition Operations
in the Global Village, by Dr. J. LeRoy Pearce,
Senior Technology Advisor to the Defence Chief Information Officer,
National Defence Headquarters, Ottowa, Ontario, Canada. Paper
presented at AFCEA Technet Canada 98, Ottawa, Canada, 22-23rd April
1998. Published in AFCEA Canadian, Spring 1998, Armed Forces
Communications and Electronics Association, Canada.
- Via David Brown, Mitre (brown@mitre.org):
- Via Prof. Austin Tate - Shared Models of Activity
- Via Cdr. William Schlichter - Collaborative Distributed Environment
- Via Dr. Peter Martin - Logica UK Limited - Co-operative intelligent
agents for situation assessment and planning
- Via Larry Wentz
Disclaimer
views and conclusions contained in material presented here are those
of the individual authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily
representing official policies or endorsements, either express or
implied, of any government agency or organization.
All resources made available here are unrestricted, but are copyright
of the individual authors or organizations involved. Those authors or
organizations assert copyright over these materials, even in cases
where an explicit copyright notice is not included in the file
provided. Please do not make copies or use the material except for the
purposes of this workshop without the express written content of the
copyright owner.
Page maintained by Austin Tate
(a.tate@ed.ac.uk),
Last updated: Wed Dec 4 10:14:47 2002
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