Our goal in the research program is to eliminate the pitfalls of compartmentalized research in different technical areas and leverage the synergies that arise from cross-area, cross-organizational international collaborative research. Toward that goal, we have defined eleven cross-area research projects with teams that consist of at least one industrial and one academic consortium member from each of the two countries. The active participation of ARL and MOD scientists as team members on each of these projects is welcome to make the ITA program successful.

As shown in figure above, each of the research projects has a primary (or core) focus within one of the technical areas. Moreover, projects across technical areas collaborate with each other as needed; this collaboration may range from the mere following of the progress of other projects to the close coordination across projects within and across technical areas. In Figure 1, each of the four vertical bars represents one of the technical areas identified in the program bulletin, while the horizontal bars represent each of the eleven research projects –these are described in detail in the Fundamental Research Volume. Each bar shows the technical areas that a project has its primary focus (red circle) or collaborates with (blue square).

Each of the eleven projects consists of several activities. The current proposal includes only some of the activities that can be undertaken at the outset of this program. As we progress in each of the research projects and activities are completed, we will define new activities as appropriate during program planning. When needed, we will define new research projects and activities and terminate existing ones as the state of the science evolves.

To maximize the probability of a successful transition, we have verified the military relevance of the projects using multiple independent approaches and also ascertained that the projects can lead to transition activities that would be meaningful in that context; these activities are described in detail in the Transition Volume. As the projects evolve over the course of this program, we will continue to take into account the evolving requirements of the US Army and UK Armed Forces to ensure successful transition.

Research Projects Summary The eleven projects (across the four technical areas) we have defined address research issues in the four technical areas identified in the program bulletin, as well as additional issues that we believe provide unique capabilities to the US Army and UK Armed Forces.

These objectives will be met through the following eleven projects:

1. Theoretical Foundations for Analysis and Design of Wireless and Sensor Networks is working to provide a robust and scalable network infrastructure which will significantly improve the reach of information across coalition members. To achieve this there must be a fundamental understanding of ad hoc wireless and sensor networks. This requires knowledge of the performance benefits and limitations of new and future technologies and how to robustly optimize their performance.

2. Interoperability of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks and Systems is investigating the problem of insufficient network interoperability which is a common barrier to the formation of agile mission groups. The problem exists between coalition nations and even different units of a nation’s armed forces. The complexities introduced by interoperability require the development of new military network monitoring capabilities.

3. Biologically Inspired Self-Organization in Networks is working to create self-configuring and highly adaptive networks which can significantly enhance the survivability of the infrastructure critical to a military operation. This requires research that focuses on understanding the behavior of military wireless networks including node mobility and the time varying behavior of such networks, as a biological entity.

4. Policy-based Security Management is investigating computing-platform independent policy-frameworks to specify and analyze security and networking policies.

5. Energy-efficient security architectures and infrastructure is developing and analyzing lightweight and adaptive security architectures and infrastructures to facilitate the formation and operation of highly dynamic, mobile coalition operations.

6. Trust and risk management in dynamic coalition environments is developing a dynamic trust and risk management framework that can be used to define and manage the concepts of trust, risk, and to support operational decision making.

7. Quality of Information for Sensor Data is studying the quality of information that is derived from different data sources, expressed and communicated through a rich set of information attributes. This will quantify knowledge and allow coalitions to appropriately weigh information derived from diverse sources and so to make better decisions.

8. Task-Oriented Deployment of Sensor Data Infrastructures is investigating algorithms, architectures, and procedures that will aid in building data source management support. It is also proving algorithms for efficiently allocating sensors to missions, dynamically adapting a network to transfer the data being collected and disseminated, and filtering and scheduling the required data for delivery to its ultimate consumers.

9. Complexity Management of Sensor Data Infrastructures is developing techniques to reduce the complexity of managing sensor data infrastructure. The research includes how to change the operating point of a sensor network in real-time to respond to fluid mission goals.

10. Mission Adaptive Collaboration is developing a theoretically grounded and empirically tested framework to allow for effective agent support for human ad hoc teams. Our vision is that teams of humans, distributed in time and space will be supported by a variety of software agents that will interact with humans and with one another to provide better team support.

11. Activities in P11 have been concluded and/or migrated to P10 and P12. This entry remains here for historical reasons.

12. Semantic Integration and Collaborative Planning is researching tools and methods for understanding situations that unfold in a distributed environment. Providing techniques for advanced modes of information integration in semantically heterogeneous and physically distributed information environments. Facilitating the development, communication, refinement and execution of plans, as well as the cognitive and psychosocial factors that may limit the acceptability or usability of such plans.