Volume 4 Number 4 - Software Agents
In the complex realm of modern military operations, commanders are dealing with increasingly diverse missions, including operations other than war, expeditionary missions, and controlling dangerous situations in dynamic and uncertain environments. All of these missions are further complicated by the requirement for joint and coalition coordination. Achieving decision superiority in these situations is becoming increasingly difficult and complex. The need to gain the right information at the right time for each type of decision maker in this complex scenario is leading the Department of Defense (DOD) toward distributed information systems that are managed and accessed in a network-centric manner.
A key technological innovation capable of handling the complexity of modern warfare is that of software agents. Agent-based computing focuses on the development of distributed computational entities (software agents) which can act on behalf of, mediate or support the actions of human users and autonomously carry out tasks to achieve goals or assist the activities of the users in achieving those goals. In the military, using these agents will improve our information and decision management capabilities and thus drastically reduce the complexities of modern warfare.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a proven record of developing revolutionary new capabilities in the area of software agents, and continues to take a leadership role in this field. DARPA is currently focusing its research in this area on several initiatives in Agent-Based Computing (ABC). The ABC suite of programs will provide the building blocks for understanding and implementing the Software Agents that are the foundation for intelligent distributed information systems and thus will enhance our ability to reach decision superiority. The three initiatives in this effort are the Control of Agent-Based Systems (CoABS) program, the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) program and the Taskable Agent Software Kit (TASK) program.
Using these programs DARPA will create an environment where intelligent distributed computing will be as easy and ubiquitous in the future as data exchange is now. The payoffs to DOD will be seen in improved interoperability of heterogeneous systems, support for coalition operations, improved intelligence gathering, and more timely command and control.
The CoABS program consists of three elements - the agent grid, agent interoperability standards and the scaling of agent control strategies. CoABS has developed novel tools for run-time interoperability among heterogeneous systems and is developing new tools to ensure rapid, real-world system integration with other software agents and entities such as servers, databases, legacy systems and sensors.
CoABS has focused on supporting joint and coalition military operations. In these domains it is necessary to assemble disparate information systems into a coherent interoperating whole without redesigning or reimplementing the systems into a single common architecture. To achieve this, it is necessary to construct an information environment where these systems are accessible to each other and their users, resulting in an intelligent distributed information system.
To achieve an operational environment for such a distributed information system, a mechanism is needed to enable the dynamic, runtime integration of agent, object, and legacy software components into applications. The key to this capability is the CoABS Grid, which is software that provides a service-based middleware infrastructure for managing complex information flows. The Grid supports the development of applications for dynamic domains such as military command and control, which require the composability, adaptability, and autonomy provided by software agents.
Current "legacy" systems can be brought to the grid through software wrappers and service descriptions, allowing their functionality to be tapped without major recoding. In addition, the cooperative nature of the problem solving, using existing software components, allows both military and industrial users to develop large scale applications without large scale software development efforts.
In the next year, CoABS will focus on transitioning those run-time integration capabilities to the military, particularly for command and control applications. Among others, CoABS will be providing C2 infrastructure in the Navy's component for Millennium Challenge 2002, operating in the Agile Commander ATD sponsored by Army CECOM, and contributing to the Air Forces' ATD in effects based operations and several of the Joint Battlespace Infosphere-related projects.
Currently, the languages used on the World Wide Web impose a significant limitation on agent based computing. Going far beyond XML, the DAML program's goal is to develop a language that allows information content to be expressed on the web in machine-readable ways. This will make for a whole new generation of Internet capabilities. Prototype tools are being developed to show the potential of such markups to provide revolutionary applications that will change the way humans interact with information.
As reported in PC Week, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has embraced DAML as a step toward what Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, calls the "semantic web." DARPA is working with Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium to ensure DAML fits with its plans for the semantic web and becomes the recommended web language for semantic interoperability. The most up to date version of the language is available on the web, as are documents on its use, tools, and demonstrations (www.daml.org).
An exciting military application for DAML is the Horus initiative, a joint DARPA-Intelink Management Office project, which introduces a new way of organizing and presenting intelligence information to users of Intelink, the DOD network for distributing classified intelligence information. Other early adopters of DAML include the Center for Army Lessons Learned and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Developing agent-based software is currently something of a "black art" — an arbitrarily complex process that has many ad hoc methodologies but no significant modeling solutions. Very few rules or protocols have been agreed on for analyzing and modeling complex, large-scale, agent systems that interact with distributed heterogeneous information systems. As a result, DARPA is investing in understanding the principles underlying agent-based computing.
The TASK program's goal is to extend the current scientific and mathematical foundations of agent-based computing and to add precision to the engineering of agent-based systems. TASK researchers will explore the application of mathematics not traditionally used for computer modeling, such as statistical physics and chaotic dynamics, to explore the modeling of multi-agent systems.
TASK researchers will demonstrate their algorithms and approaches against a set of "research exploration frameworks" chosen to be of great relevance to a very wide range of DOD problems. Specific focus will be placed on dynamic command and control problems, the fundamentals of cooperative systems, and understanding information-agent behavior. In this way, new techniques for resource assignment against chaotic problems, hybrid control of dynamic systems, and modeling the information dynamics of complex IT systems will be explored and exploited.
In this short article, we have described a vision of the software-of-the-future that drives the agent-based computing programs supported by DARPA, and run in cooperation with the services and other DOD agencies. These programs provide funding to over fifty universities, companies, and research institutes who are cooperating in developing both underlying science and implemented technology for developing and fielding agent based systems for the Department of Defense.
Author Contact InformationAuthor Biographies |
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Dr. James Hendler Program Manager DARPA / ITO 3701 Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203-1714 Phone: 703-696-2238 Fax: 703-696-2203 E-mail: [email protected] |
Laura Douglass Sr. Program Manager Schafer Corporation 4301 North Fairfax Dr., Suite 700 Arlington, VA 22203 Phone: 703-516-6033 Fax: 703-516-6065 E-mail: [email protected] |
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