Reducing Time Sensitive Target ( TST ) Prosecution Decision Time using Inference Processing and Intelligent Agents

Automating the processes that make up the prosecution decision is critical to meeting the Air & Space Operation Center (AOC) Operation Requirements Document (ORD). The ORD necessitates assessments to be performed in under ten minutes. Meeting this stringent time requirement is difficult for human operators due to the complexity of the data set used in making prosecution decisions. Prosecution decision management for TSTs requires knowledge of several criteria including the threat level of the target, adherence to Rules of Engagement (RoE), weather factors, airspace de-confliction, consequences with regard to the civilian population and associated infrastructure, and availability of assets for making target assignments. Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL), under funding by the Air Force Research Laboratory, has been researching and developing decision support solutions that use efficient software techniques, such as knowledge-based systems, intelligent agents, and enterprise based retrieval services, to support the TST prosecution management within the AOC. At the core of ATL’s software solution is the use of a commercial inference engine along with ATL’s field-tested intelligent agents. The intelligent agents are used to gather essential elements of information (EEI) from systems of record such as the Theater Battle Management Core System, the Joint Weather Impacts System, and the JMEM Weaponeering System (JWS) and prepare the data for use by the inference engine. The key aspects of the inferencing tool include: 1) encapsulation of rules within rulesets according to domain, 2) rule-flows to define execution flow, and 3) rule templates used to define reusable rulebase components. The advantage of using the rule template paradigm is that portions of the rulesets can be published for review and augmentation by the operational user in real-time without requiring an application shutdown; therefore, application is much less fragile than traditional software solutions, which is critical in the dynamic battle management environment.