An Interoperable Framework for Distributed Coalition

Planning

The Collaborative Planning Model

KSCO, 15th February 2012

Tom Klapiscak, John Ibbotson, David Mott, Dave Braines, Jitu Patel

Motivation• Effective coalition planning requires that distributed human

teams working in specialised functional areas maintain shared understanding.

• Various specialist software tools are used to support planning within planning cells. However, these distinct tools do not interoperate.

• Thus, communication between teams is inefficient and lossy:o Static, hard-copy office documents must be interpreted and adapted manually.o Only the outputs of planning activity are shared; intermediate steps in the planning

process (rationale, assumptions, constraints) are often omitted.

• “One size fits all” tooling is not feasible.

Proposed Solution• Adopt a shared, generic and machine-interpretable ontology for the

representation & communication of plans and planning processes.

• Develop mapping procedures to align the data models of bespoke tools with the shared ontology.

• Extend the shared ontology into new conceptual domains where necessary.

• The CPM was designed with this purpose in mind:o Formal specification of the semantics

of planning and collaboration.o Layered design: general abstract

planning concepts can be extended to cover new military domains.

o Explicit encoding of the planning process.

Origins of the CPM• Initiated in May 2005• Fundamental research in network and

information sciences• An alliance between the US/UK

Governments and an IBM-led consortium

• 5-year program extended in 2011 for a further 5 years

• Task 1: Semantic integration and Interoperability (Southampton, IBM UK, RPI, DSTL, ARL)

• Task 2: Plan representation for human to human communications; and for human to machine communication (IBM UK, Southampton, Klein, DSTL, ARL)

The International Technology Alliance (ITA)

Project 12: Semantic Integration and Collaborative

Planning

• The CPM is based on:o Established AI planning research

(PLANET [3], I-N-O-V-A [4])o SME Consultationo Extensive review of military

doctrine

• The CPM has been the subject of two previous empirical evaluations: o In 2008 [5] and 2011 [6, 7]o Both yielded valuable insights and

encouraging results

CPM Transition Project

• Name: CPM Interoperability Evaluation• Started: November 2011• Partners: DSTL, NATO, NC3A• Objectives:

o Define and implement an export capability for NATO TOPFAS Operational Planning Tool (OPT).

o Demonstrate the representation of TOPFAS operational plans in CPM.

o Demonstrate the sharing of plans between TOPFAS and country-specific planning tools.

Tool for Operations Planning Functional Area Services

• Suite of planning tools developed by the NC3A to support current NATO planning doctrineo Comprehensive Operations Planning

Directive (COPD) [1]

• Collaborative environment for plan development and knowledge capture

• Existing Export facility: MS Office documents design to support commander’s briefingo Meaning is opaque to machineso Does not support interoperability

between tools

Operational Planning Tool

o Provides causal, spatial, temporal and resource views of an operations design

Initial Work• Determine suitable (possibly composite) CPM

analogues for TOPFAS vocabularyo Identify areas of apparent semantic consonance/dissonanceo Investigation is based on our interpretation of informal definitions of

TOPFAS vocabulary

• Partial coverage of TOPFAS OPT Vocabulary:o Objectiveo End Stateo Action/Task and Effecto Decisive Conditions and Lines of Operation

Example Plan: OPT VisualisationWe demonstrate our initial mapping procedure using a simple

operations design derived from TOPFAS training material.

Objective-Goal Mapping

CPM Goal• “A statement about the world held by an

agent which the agent desires to be true” [2]

TOPFAS Objective• “A clearly defined and attainable

goal to be achieved.” [1]

Comparison of TOPFAS Objectives and CPM Goals based on our interpretation of informal TOPFAS vocabulary definitions

• Some Similaritieso “Goal to be achieved” ≈ “Desired world state” o Both associated with an owner (or commander) ultimately responsible for its attainmento Both permit decomposition into sub-objectiveso In both, sub-objectives can be used in the delegation of responsibilities from superior to

subordinate

• Some Issueso No obvious CPM analogue for some attributes held by TOPFAS

objectives: e.g. Acceptability, Feasibility, Suitabilityo Notable difference in expressed temporal attributes:

• CPM permissible intervals vs. TOPFAS “end date” instant.• What is the precise meaning of ”end date”?• The mapping must ensure temporal implications of the CPM model

are aligned with those of TOPFAS

Objective-Goal Mapping

Example plan: CPM

Visualisation

Example plan: CPM

Visualisation

Future Work• Identify suitable CPM analogues for more TOPFAS

OPT vocabulary

• Validation of proposed mappings is neededo Qualitative: E.g. SME reviewo Quantitative: E.g. (Semi-)formal verification techniques

• Demonstration of proof of concept implementation: 14th March 2012

• Demonstration of final implementation: Summer 2012

References• [1] “Allied Command Operations Planning Directive COPD Interim V1.0”, 17

December 2010. • [2] Mott, D. “CPM: Visual Guide to the CPM v3”,

https://www.usukitacs.com/node/1712, 2011 • [3] Gil, Y and Blythe, J. “PLANET: A Shareable and Reusable Ontology for

Representing Plans”, 2000, http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/421975.html• [4] Tate, A. “Representing Plans as a Set of Constraints – The <I-N-O-V-A> Model. In

proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning Systems, 1996

• [5] Dorneich, M.C., Mott, D., Bahrami, A., Yuan, J., Smart, A. “Evaluation of Shared Representation to Support Collaborative Multilevel Planning”, Technical Report, See http://usukita.org

• [6] Michael C. Dorneich, David Mott, Ali Bahrami, John A. Allen, Jitu Patel and Cheryl Giammanco “Lessons Learned from an Evaluation of a Shared Representation to Support Collaborative Planning”

• [7] Dorneich, M.C., Mott, D., Bahrami, A., Patel, J., and Giammanco, C. “Evaluation of a Shared Representation to Support Collaborative, Distributed, Coalition, Multilevel Planning”, The 5th Annual Conference of the International Technology Alliance, Maryland, US, August 2011