The document discusses the C2 Agent Grid (C2AG), a proposed architectural solution using intelligent software agents to achieve information superiority for the US military. C2AG would use different types of agents to fuse data from diverse sources, provide commanders with an integrated view of the battlefield, and assist with decision-making. Interface agents would provide a personalized human-computer interface. Application agents would integrate data and functions from existing military systems. Service agents would provide access to non-military data sources like sensors and databases. Together, these agent types would help achieve the vision of dominating 21st century battlespaces with information dominance.

1. The C2 Agent Grid:
Supporting the Vision of U.S. Domination of 21st
Century Battlespaces.
Larry Suarez
Grid Research Group
Agent Net, Inc.
Abstract
The national military has determined that in 21st
century military operations, military
dominance requires information dominance. This is known as “winning the Battlefield
Information War”. The United States is aggressively exploiting new information
technologies in order to achieve information superiority, with the objective of achieving
better and faster decisions during operations. Contributing to information superiority will
be Agent Grid agents which will fuse rich real-time data from diverse sources to provide
a single, integrated view of the battlespace available to all U.S combat forces and allied
forces. Agent Grid agents will also be used as Virtual Battle Staffs which will assist
combat commanders in their decision processes. Cooperative communities of humans
and Agent Net agents will perform cognitive support to mission planning, operations and
control. Agent Net envisions its core product, the Agent Grid, to make a significant
contribution to the creation and support of integrated battlespaces and information
superiority.
Background
Historically, military information systems were developed to engage a specific threat with
little regard for the interrelationship with other systems or supporting infrastructure.
Stovepipe systems made it difficult for platforms to share information in a timely manner
causing inefficiencies, especially in joint and allied operations. The military is looking to
leverage technological opportunities to achieve new levels of effectiveness in joint
military operations. The primary challenge of conducting joint operations within the
military can be summed up in one word: interoperability.
With the increase in frequency and complexity of joint operations within the last ten
years (e.g. Desert Storm), the United States Department of Defense (DoD) has
constructed a number of policy and guidance documents and reference models all in
hopes of increasing the interoperability of military systems. The DoD effort is due to the
realization that military dominance requires information dominance. Information
dominance is commonly referred to as “Information Superiority”. As defined by the DoD
Joint Vision 2010 initiative,
“…Information Superiority is the capability to collect, process, and disseminate
an uninterrupted flow of information while exploiting or denying an adversary’s

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ability to do the same… The unqualified importance of information will not
change in 2010. What will differ is the increased access to information and
improvements in the speed and accuracy of prioritizing and transferring data
brought about by advances in technology. While the friction and the fog of war
can never be eliminated, new technology promises to mitigate their impact.”
In this vision, combat planning and execution will be much faster, and smaller forces will
be much more autonomous and lethal. Integrated Command and Control systems, which
exchange data and work together, will help military forces to prevail against adversaries
by operating in a rapid, coherent, and coordinated fashion never previously achieved.
Commanders at all levels will control their forces and apply their weapons with a higher
degree of precision, certainty of location, and awareness of the environment and of
enemy actions and intentions. Responsive and reliable information technology will
provide timely intelligence, greater situational awareness, and a single integrated
operational picture of the battlefield. Advanced information technology, and by
extension Command and Control systems, will enable entirely new modes of military
operation with much greater military effectiveness, just as they have radically changed
how many businesses operate.
Achieving Information Superiority is not an easy goal. One of the most difficult
challenges in integrating information from numerous sources is the fusion of data into
knowledge. Access to more data may actually inhibit, rather than support, better decision
making unless this data is fused into reliable knowledge. Different users may need
different geographic presentations fused and placed into a common reference grid and
may need different levels of detail. Uncertainty regarding the completeness, accuracy, or
time of data must be conveyed in its display so that commanders can assess the impact
of this uncertainty on decisions. Further, commanders must have the ability and the
training to query the "fused" picture to get the understanding they need to carry out their
particular piece of the mission.
The cornerstone of information superiority is advanced Command and Control
technology and systems, which can provide to all tactical levels of command a robust,
continuous, common operating picture of the battlespace. The resulting heightened
situational awareness should vastly improve the effectiveness with which commanders
at all levels can pursue a mission. The common operating picture can allow tactical
decision making at the lowest levels of command consistent with the higher-level
commander's operational objectives, and the decentralized tactical execution can
enhance the ability of lower-level tactical units to react quickly to changing
circumstances.
The C2 Agent Grid (C2AG)
There are a number of architectural visions in the national military in support of
information superiority. Examples include the Air Force Joint Battlespace Infosphere
(JBI), the Army Enterprise Strategy, the DoD Defense Information Infrastructure (DII),
and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010). The overriding requirement for
these strategies is that “the warrior needs a fused, real-time true-picture of the
battlespace and the ability to order, respond, and coordinate vertically and horizontally to

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the degree necessary to prosecute the mission in that battlespace.”1
This involves
supporting global connectivity and interoperability among disparate information systems.
In response to the national need for information superiority, Agent Net is proposing an
architectural solution using advance agent software technology. This architecture is an
infrastructure to support the information needs of the national military. Intelligent
software agents will enable the military to create virtual environments consisting of
complex processes utilizing embedded intelligence to automate decision-making. A
global network of intelligent agents will carry out delegated tasks autonomously for data
capture, mission management, mission workflow, and integrated pertinent learning and
communication applications. Agents will also mimic command hierarchies, command
paths, and command organizations which create Virtual Battle Staffs to aid the military in
dealing with reduced staffs. Agents will mask the differences between heterogeneous
information systems and support full interoperability. Artificial intelligence and Agent Net
agents are necessary in supporting 21st
century warfare whose mission environments
will be highly dynamic, complex, naturally distributed (i.e. involving numerous military
entities), and require a high degree of automation. The supporting architecture for this
type of warfare must provide all the envisioned attributes of 21st
century warfare and any
unanticipated future attributes.
Within the Agent Net proposal, all intelligent software agents are considered “first-class”
citizens which imply that each agent maintains a core set of knowledge, cognitive skills,
and behavior. The knowledge includes information about an agent’s current state, the
location of other agents, and the ability to converse with those agents. Cognitive skills
include the ability to support goal directed activities, an ability to support independent
learning, and the ability to execute planned actions. Behavior includes, but is not limited
to, the ability to respond to scheduled events, to participate in traditional transactional
processes, secure communication and identification, and to speak and listen in
numerous industry formats (XML, EDI, HTTP, and KQML). These basic skills allow the
agents to be autonomous and free to participate within virtual organizations. A virtual
organization is a dynamic entity which tends to apply constraints and social objectives
onto an agent within the organization. Since each agent contains core skills which allow
it to act autonomously, an agent could be viewed as an individual organization.
Beyond the core skills, additional behavior can be attributed to an agent. The intent of
the Agent Net architecture is to support not only designers in adding behavior to agents
(during some design phase), but also to support warfighters to add behavior during the
process of a mission. The behavior/skills create an agent taxonomy which helps
determine the types of organizations formed within the Agent Net infrastructure. This is
conceptually equivalent to how organizations are formed in our society based on the
skills and behavior of individuals. In support of the Department of Defense’s mandate
for information superiority, Agent Net has created an agent organization called the C2
Agent Grid (C2AG). Agent Net envisions the possible creation of other specialized
organizations all under the control of C2AG. For example, there may be shooter
organization whose agents are specialized towards supporting the locating and targeting
of enemy forces. Another organization might be specialized towards the numerous
sensors seen on the battlefield today and the control facilities needed to integrate
sensors into higher level grids. Finally, there might be an organization that supports
1
User Interface Specifications for the Defense Information Infrastructure (DII)

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commercial grids such as the Internet for tactical information outside the military such as
commercial flights, freight, or transportation. Figure 1.0 shows the types of
organizations envisioned by Agent Net in support of 21st
century warfighters.
Figure 1: DoD Agent
Organizations
The C2AG Taxonomy
Within the C2AG organization, agents have a taxonomy based on their skills. By
identifying a taxonomy for agents within an organization, designers have an easier task
of forming new sub organizations or groups within an organization for additional
specialized behavior. There are three general classifications of agents within C2AG:
1. Interface Agents – agents which support the user-agent interface. Their behavior
is attributed to the ability to personalize and take into account warfighter
preferences. Preferences include how a warfighter expects to view data, the
nomenclature understood by a warfighter, and the conceptual framework
expected by a warfighter. Interface agents exhibit domain behavior and thus are
not available to participate in groups which are general in nature.
2. Application Agents – agents which provide a defined domain (military) function.
The functions allow the C2AG to support a common tactical picture of all
information spanning the spectrum from the sensor to the shooter and allow
tactical commanders to understand the battlespace. Application agents provide
the functionality found in traditional C2 and C4I systems.
3. Service Agents – agents which are non-domain (non-military) specific and
provide low-level access to diverse data sources. Data sources include physical
devices (e.g. sensors), databases, and data feeds (e.g. weather).
Figure 2 shows the taxonomy of agents within C2AG.
Air Force Grid Shooter Grid
C2 Agent Grid
Internet
Sensor Grid

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Figure 2: Agent
Taxonomy
within C2AG
Interface Agents
Interface agents provide the human computer interface (HCI) to C2AG. For example,
there may be agents that directly represent the chain of command for a particular unit.
Or there may be agents which contribute to a particular warfighter’s view of the
battlespace. Interface agents collectively provide what is termed a work-centered
interface. A work-centered interface is a collection of agents and their graphical
interface counterparts which provide task-level capabilities to a warfighter. The work-
centered interface ensures that information is delivered to the warfighter to support any
decisions that warfighter needs to make. In addition, the agents automate some of the
functions expected from the warfighter such as the realization of anomalies that occur
during a mission (e.g. impending extreme weather conditions or a sudden increase of air
traffic in the battlespace). Automating tasks expected from a warfighter allows that
warfighter to concentrate on other facets of the mission which are deemed more critical
and require human intervention.
The reasons for supporting specialized agents for HCI interfaces is that current interface
models for military systems tend to be user-initiated and provide little or no assistance to
the warfighter. Automating some of the decision processes expected from a warfighter
or providing the warfighter with information to aid in their decision processes is the goal
of interface agents. However, automating or augmenting the decision processes of a
warfighter is not without potential risk. Agent Net envisions the use of agents which can
be personalized and whose behavior can be augmented during a mission in order to
help deter the following anomalies that occur when trying to automatic or augment
cognitive processes:
 Prevention of “automation surprise” which occurs when the interface’s model
of an operation differs from the warfighters cognitive model of the operation.
 The poor model supported by an interface alters the state of a operation or
mission and the interface fails to notify the warfighter appropriately.
C2AG
Interface Agents
Application Agents
Service Agents
Physical Devices
Data Feeds
Databases
Domain (Warfighter)
Agents
Scheduling Agent
Logistics Agent
Weather Agent
Command Hierarchy
Agents
HCI Agents

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The behavior of interface agents may also be augmented in real-time to support either
multiple views of data or multiple modes of operation. For example, a crew or individual
warfighter may determine that a manual mode of operation during a mission would be
more appropriate. The behavior of the interface agents would be immediately
augmented to either reduce or remove any automated processes until further
notification. Or the interface agents may support a mixed-mode of operation. Multiple
views of data would be required in situations where anomalies or events cause mission
changes and alternate views of the mission become critical (e.g. new enemy threat).
Application Agents
C2AG provides the functionality found in traditional C2 and C4I systems in addition to
any other functions required to support a single integrated operational picture of the
battlefield. Many of the functions provided by C2AG will be integrated from existing
operational military systems. Those software systems range widely in implementation
language usage, interface design, and data model design. In addition, those software
systems need to remain operational since they provide services to other “grids” in the
national military. C2AG is designed to provide a homogenous view of all provided
functions regardless of their origin. It is the responsibility of the application agents within
C2AG to mask the differences of the individual functions and provide a cohesive,
integrated, homogenous, and accessible view. A homogenous view allows designers to
generate additional applications agents or construct new organizations/grids. In support
of integrating diverse systems, agent core skills include data filtering capabilities and
data transformation capabilities. Realize that application agents are capable of
providing functionality directly without having to integrate existing military software.
Figure 3 shows an application agent providing a function by referencing an external
software function while another application agent has embedded behavior equivalent to
the external function.
Figure 3:
Application
Agent function
provision
modes.
When an application agent masks the peculiarities of an external function, the agent is
said to “provide” that function. Within the Agent Net architecture, functions are referred
to in general terms as “services”. The correct phrase is that the agent “provides” the
“service”. Figure 4 shows application agents providing a homogenous view of legacy
services to the warfighter. The separation between agents and services is an important
concept.

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Figure 4:
Application
Agents
providing
services.
The separation of agents and services allows agents and their services to be provided
by different military entities. Multiple application agents can provide the same service
which gives the warfighter multiple views of the same service. Application agents
understand how to communicate with their provided services. For example, an
application agent may be requested to schedule an event. The application agent will
convert the request into the dialect understood by its corresponding scheduling service.
In addition, the application agent can apply it’s behavior to the request such as validating
the source of the request, augmenting the request, and evaluating the request for valid
content.
Service Agents
Service agents provide access to non-domain specific data sources such as databases,
data feeds, and physical devices. Service agents behave much like application agents
in that a service agent is said to provide a non-domain service. Service agents mask the
specifics of accessing an external service. Unlike application agents, service agents do
not provide functionality via their behavior. Service agents provide their functionality by
accessing external services. Figure 5 shows service agents providing a homogenous
view to the warfighter of numerous data sources.
Figure 5:
Service Agents
providing
services. Sensors
C2 System
Mission
Scheduling
Ground
Support
Requirements
Aircraft/Crew
Tasking
Air Mission
Planning
Documentation

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Architecture
This section will describe the overall architecture of C2AG given the previous
discussions on the types of agents which populate C2AG. The architecture is described
using the DoD C4ISR Architecture Framework which has been mandated by the DoD as
a common form of describing architectures.
Figure 6 shows the High-Level Operational Concept Graphic for C2AG. The figure
depicts the relationship between the agent types and how each type may contribute to
the overall strategy. The lowest level on the chart in Figure 5 represents the numerous
sources of information in the DoD including sensors, databases, data feeds, etc...
Service agents homogenize the view of the data and feed the information to application
agents. Application agents take the homogenized data coupled with the numerous types
of functions. The application agents homogenize the function view which is then used
by the interface agents. Views of data are rendered by the interface agents for individual
warfighters.
Figure 6: Agent Architecture:
High-Level Operational
Concept Graphic
Summary
Agent Net is proposing the use of agent technology to support the military’s view of
warfare in the 21st
century. This includes the military’s vision of making decisions faster
enabled by awareness of the battlespace when and where it is needed supported by a
superior information infrastructure and architecture. Agent Net’s proposed C2AG
architecture will help the military move towards information superiority.