A Software Agent Toolkit for Effective Information Processing in the Battle Command Domain

Commanders of combat units have traditionally desired as much information as possible to aid them in making key decisions. Ironically, we have reached the stage where there is now too much information available. A commonly proposed solution is to utilize software agents to collect information, select what is useful, and deliver it to the commander. By their nature, software agents are active, distributed, intelligent, and persistent computations, so they can enable the best information to be made available when and where it is needed. Unfortunately using such software agents effectively requires computer programming expertise not typically available to a battlefield commander. Global InfoTek Inc (GITI) is currently assembling a suite of agent development tools that will enable programmers to develop software agents that can be controlled and manipulated by the commanders in the field.