An Architecture for Policy-based C2 Decision Support Systems

Abstract

At the 11th ICCRTS, an architecture was proposed supporting a more flexible, policybased approach to command and control systems3. Such a system would be adaptable to ever-changing warfighter needs and different phases of modern conflicts. Policy in its many forms is an essential part of military decision-making with examples such as Commander’s Guidance, Rules of Engagement, security restrictions, legal and international policies. Additionally, commanders use policy to shape missions, pair weapons with targets, allocate airspace, and request coordination. As policy use grows in importance, so does the need to flexibly adapt policy and to select the most relevant for the situation at hand. Systems that attempt to support the use of policy must move from hard-coded, predefined structures to more flexible representations expressed in the warfighters’ terminology. A demonstration-of-concept architecture was built to explore policy-based decision support, combining a situational awareness ontology, a flexible policy engine with externally defined policies, a context manager, and intelligent agents. These architectural components were integrated with an existing SOA-based targeting tool called the Joint Target Manager and exercised in an experimental environment. This paper discusses this work including lessons learned and next steps in development.