NICCI: A Multi-agent Cognitive Formation

Edward Dawidowicz

U.S. Army Communications-Electronic Command (CECOM),

Research Development and Engineering Center (RDEC)

Fort Monmouth, NJ

mailto:edward.dawidowicz@mail1.monmouth.army.mil

Keywords: Network-centric, command and control, battlefield, behavior generation, entity-relational network, hierarchy of

organization, knowledge, habitat, knowledge management, messages, and semantic network

Abstract

The demand for effective and expediently made decisions is

always in vogue. This is not surprising since making

correct decisions is essential for successful operations in

both the military and business environments. Decisions

require data processed for quality, concept and context.

The time is spent to weigh information for quality, to fuse

information into concepts, and to package information for

contextual relevance. The goal of information gathering and

processing is focused on existing or arising problems. The

network-centric paradigm allows for access to additional,

previously unreachable, sources of information. While

there is a benefit of getting more information, the time spent

to weigh information for quality, to fuse information into

concepts, and to package for contextual relevance is also

increasing. Without a dramatic decrease in informationprocessing time, the network-centric paradigm1

 will not

achieve its full potential.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a potential solution

to the information overflow problem. The solution is

proposed in a form of a system of cognitive agents, where

cognitive agents are located at every informationprocessing nod. These cognitive agents we will call

Intelligent Nodes. The Intelligent Nodes [4] consist of

machines and human-machine hybrids. Military processes

are used in this paper to illustrate the application of a

multi-agent cognitive framework as decision-maker

assistants for making collaborative decisions better and

faster.

Introduction

 

1

 Command and Control are responsible for making

decisions in transforming goals into actions. The

Intelligence supplies the information in regard to enemy

positions and analysis of enemy courses of action (COA).

In 2001, Dr. John Salasin has coined an appropriate name

for the Joint DARPA program as Network-centric

Infrastructure for Command, Control and Intelligence

(NICCI).

The battlespace today and in the future is different from

what we know based on the history of Twentieth century

campaigns which manifested themselves as trench warfare

of World War I and blitzkriegs of World War II. While the

military is trained to fight twentieth century style

campaigns, they find themselves today involved more and

more in smaller conflicts where asymmetric warfare tactics

are playing a bigger role. Stability and support operations

(SASO) are the predominate type of operations conducted

by the United States and coalition forces today.

With the emerging new technologies and tactics of this new

type of warfare, 'bigger guns' do not always lead to a

decisive victory and the need for a faster and more agile

force has been recognized [3]. This new force, in addition

to conventional weapons, will be armed with the latest

information technology, where radios and computers are

only part of the solution.

In this new warfare, the warfighter is no longer an isolated

entity. The warfighter becomes a part of the operational

environment where socioeconomic and physical laws play a

greater role in the success or failure of a particular mission

or even the war itself. The Network-centric warfare

paradigm [2] is a new way of looking at this type of future

battlefield. The Network-centric Infrastructure for

Command, Control and Intelligence (NICCI) program is an

attempt to find an out-of-the-box solution to an out-of-thebox problem.

 Solutions to complex real world problems require looking

at the problem space as a whole. If the solution is focused

only on satisfying a few constraints, the solution will have

weaknesses, which will be exploited by the opponent. The

solutions emerge in a planning process as elements of a plan

[1]. The incoming information influences and transforms

earlier constraints, or produces new ones. This dynamic

aspect of dealing with the real world complicates the

planning process. Decisions are always focused on

producing solutions which best satisfy the goals of

achieving a certain effect based on current and anticipated
conditions or states. The exchange of information relevant

to the process therefore becomes very important.

NICCI introduces a novel concept called the habitat. The

habitat in the conventional warfare schema is a set of

combat, and combat support entities focused on achieving a

given mission. Today habitats are more complex clusters of

military and civilian entities; where information interchange

is influenced by cultural, political, and socioeconomic

realities. The military, paramilitary and civilian constituents

of a habitat need a network-centric infrastructure to

effectively communicate and collaborate in an attempt to

focus in finding mutually benefiting solution. Due to the

associated complexities, a multi-agent framework imbedded

into the nodes of a communication network can assist

members of a particular habitat with resolving issues such

as information transformation, security, policy management

and policy enforcement.

References

[1] A. Meystel, J Albus, "Intelligent Systems Architecture, Design and Control", John Wiley & Sons Inc 2002

[2] "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future", Vice Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski, U.S. Navy, and John J. Garstka

Published January 1998, http://www.usni.org/Proceedings/Articles98/PROcebrowski.htm

[3] http://www.dtic.mil/jv2020/jvpub2.htm

[4], E. Dawidowicz, Albert Rodriguez, John Langston, “Intelligent Nodes in Knowledge Centric Warfare”, Proceedings of 2002

Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, June, 2002