Distributed collaboration foundation

Abstract

The formalization of network centric warfare (NCW) signaled a new Department of Defense drive towards systems that could conceivably interact towards the accomplishment of a common goal. But the debate regarding NCW possibilities and practicalities in terms of existing and potential technologies highlight that much work is needed before the theortical NCW can be realized. The Information and Cyberwarfare Technology Center (ICTC) initiated the Distributed Sensor Web (DSW) independent research and development project to provide the war fighter with more realtime and accurate situational awarenessin today's dynamic, fast-paced operational environment. To facilitate the proposed degree of autonomous collaboration the Distributed Collaboration Foundation (DCF) was developed to enable large and small scale federation autonomous collaboration and adapation. Existing distributed approaches based on intelligent software agents and service-oriented architectures (SOA) provide reasonable foundations for distribution and operation of software components along with data exchanges but they do not provide a mechanism that supports component interaction in terms of decision making towards accomplishment of a common goal or adaptation. The DCF uses belief network models to represent the known and "uncertain" aspects of mission operational criteria and the respective operational environment.