A system integrating agent services with JMS for shared battlefield situation awareness

Abstract

This paper reports on work in progress on a prototype information dissemination and management system for a hierarchical military command structure. Each unit is provided with a suite of services that integrates three paradigms for collaboration, communicates with its neighbors, and directs its immediate subordinates. This paper emphasizes concepts largely ignored but critical for shared situation awareness. As a prerequisite for coordination, we focus on common knowledge. Something is common knowledge in a group if not only does everyone in the group know it but also everyone knows that everyone knows it. Constraints on inter-unit communication motivated using, in one unit’s services, proxy agents for its subordinate units. This use of proxies amounts to a version of the psychological concept of theory of mind (the ability to attribute to others mental states often conflicting with our own), seen as a mechanism for achieving common knowledge.