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Applied Systems Intelligence, Inc. (ASI) has developed a variety of frameworks for distributed, collaborative command and control by drawing on over a decade of development experience that includes trail blazing work for DARPA, NASA and the Department of Defense. Based on our core intelligent systems technology platform, PreAct, ASI efforts have been applied to advanced military C2 systems, such as the Army's Future Combat System, the U.S. Air Force's X-45 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), and civilian applications such as our Command and Control Information Technology (c2it) application. Command and Control applications tend to be performance assurance systems developed to support a distributed team of humans in the performance of critical tasks where failure is not an option. Core services in this environment may include:  | Situation assessment - processing raw and formatted data from local and remote sources to answer the question "How does this data affect me and my team?" | | | Dynamic planning - applying the entire body of knowledge about a situation and possible courses of action to recommend what should be done, when and by whom. It provides the guidance to answer, "What should we do about this?" | | | Automatic task execution - allowing team members to hand selected tasks off to their command system for automatic execution. | | | Information management - This function assures that the right information reaches the right people based on their role in the organization, every time. | A critical aspect of C2 systems is that these powerful services are provided at every computing node, including both fixed and mobile assets, and not just at the command center. Command and Control systems can be designed to meet the needs of a full range of organizations, from small local fire and police departments to major cities and state-level organizations. Their distributed nature allows them to gain maximum benefits from small resources, such as standard phone lines, radio links and laptop or desktop computers, while also remaining compatible with digital local and wide area networks. The system addresses the key needs of: Cost of ownership - using standard server, desktop, laptop, handheld and wearable systems that can interface with existing communications systems. These can be deployed incrementally, and are easily updated and synchronized either automatically by a centralized authority (push), or manually by the user (pull). | | Scalability - applications can be sized from as small as a single node on a single desktop up to tens of thousands of fixed or mobile nodes. Because the applications are centered around collaboration, nodes can interact with any other node anywhere without having to climb the hierarchy of systems to find relevant resources. | | | Ease of deployment - C2 systems are ready to operate the day they are delivered. Based on knowledge gained from subject matter expert interviews and interaction with the customer's user groups, training is minimized by the intelligent services within the system. | | | Threshold of benefit - adaptable behaviors are part of the Day One solution that can grow and change with the needs of the organization. Modular, knowledge-based expert systems are at the core of ASI's Command and Control solution set. | |
