A service-based command and control systems architecture for crisis management

Abstract

Societies have always been challenged by different crises, disasters and difficult times although western society for a long time has been considered safe. In recent years, our perception of the world has changed, due to terrorist attacks and other large-scale disasters. To handle uncertain situations where the conditions can change rapidly; effective crisis management is required. To support crisis management, command and control (C2) systems can be used. However, a solid architecture for these systems is needed, if they should meet the requirements of crisis management, e.g., support inter-organisational and situational awareness including crisis, organisational and security awareness. The objective of this paper is to outline an architecture for C2 systems supporting network centric crisis management. The corner-stones of this architecture are: the C2 model, the service structure, the service allocation bridges and the distributed ontologies. Further, the information flow and the IT security aspects are covered as well.