SOLUTIONS Session:
Emerging Trends Impacting Information Sharing

May 18, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

This session will address the current state of information sharing policies and technology trends. Discussion topics will include: How are we collaborating in-theatre, in particular while on the move in rapidly changing environments? What are the limitations of data exchange and communication that need to be looked at to improve collaboration? How to we decide what and when to share? Are there current policies that contradict each other or create operational gaps?

SPEAKERS

C4I CENTER Technology Paper Session:
Situational and Domain Awareness

Elements of Future COP Patterns

Hans Polzer

Lockheed-Martin

May 18, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

The concept of a common operational picture (COP) has been pervasive in the C4I domain for more than 30 years. However, an overly literal interpretation of the word "picture", an overemphasis on "common" and a focus on integrating and fusing data from sensors has limited the utility and scope of applicability of "COPs" built to date. This paper explores conceptual elements of future COP patterns that will address these limitations and thereby broaden the applicability and utility of COP implementations. In addition, the paper provides the beginnings of an open, net-centric pattern approach that will enable heterogeneous COPs interoperate with one another and with the many diverse data sources that contribute to the common operational picture. Key elements of the future COP net-centric pattern model are:

• The COP as an incomplete model of reality
• The COP as a consistent, vice common, model
• The COP as collaborative and human-based
• The COP as a dynamic order of battle
• The COP as a representation of operational context
• The COP as having defined operational scope

BIO

Maritime Domain Awareness:
Command, Control, Communications,and
Intelligence for the Thousand Ship Navy

Mark Agnello
Julian Astudillo
Micheal Jauregui
Brandon Krikorian
Jeffrey Brown

Naval Postgraduate School

May 18, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to present results of applying structured systems engineering methods, domain patterns, and tools to develop architectures, an information exchange standard, and a cost estimate of hosted mission applications for the Thousand Ship Navy Command, Control, Computers, Communications, and Intelligence system concept in support of the Global Maritime Partnership enterprise.

BIOS

J. Brown is currently an employee of The Boeing Company as a System Architect and Engineering at Colorado Springs, Colorado. He has an established career in Aerospace/Defense with contributions to multiple Department of Defense material development programs including receipt of a co patent award for Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System (AN/AWS-2) sub-projectile prototype. He received a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in December 2009.

M. Agnello is a Project Engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in the Force Training Assessment Department, FT31 Telecommunications Engineering. His experiences are in developing rapidly deployable mobile communication systems. Mark received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in 2006 and his Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Naval Post Graduate School in 2009.

High Level Fusion and Predictive Situational Awareness with Probabilistic Ontologies

Paulo Costa
Kuo-Chu Chang
Kathryn Laskey
Rommel Carvalho

George Mason University

May 18, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

The change of focus in modern warfare from individual platforms to the network has caused a concomitant shift in supporting concepts and technologies. Greater emphasis is placed on interoperability and composeability. New technologies such as SOA and semantically aware systems have come into the spotlight. This paper argues that just as the problem space demands interoperability of diverse technologies, so must the solution space. In other words, not only are new approaches needed, but they must also come together as a seamlessly interoperable technological tool set. This can be accomplished only via a consistent multi-disciplinary approach. In this paper, we present some of the major requirements of today's Predictive Situation Awareness Systems (PSAW), propose our approach as a coordinated mix between state-of-the-art research efforts, and present the architecture for enabling our approach.

BIO

Dr. P. Costa received his PhD in Information Technology from GMU in 2005. He is an affiliate faculty with the GMU C4I Center and a LT COL in the Brazilian Air Force, planning to retire in Summer 2008. Dr. Costa is a world-class expert in integrating semantic technology and uncertainty management. He developed PR-OWL, a probabilistic extension of the OWL ontology language. He supervised the development of an open-source reasoning engine for PR-OWL ontologies, developed by the UnBBayes group at the University of Brasilia.

SOLUTIONS Session:
Streamlining Certification/Accreditation

May 18, 2010 at 14:30

ABSTRACT

This session will address several key issues impacting the ability to streamline the certification and accreditation process. Discussion topics will include: How to facilitate reciprocity to speed up deployments? How can small businesses engage effectively in an arena with strong certification/accreditation requirements? Can we look towards reusable technology as an accelerator? Where have we seen a certification/accreditation process that has struck the right balance between agility and effectiveness?

SPEAKERS

C4I CENTER Technology Paper Session:
New Warfighter Technologies

Roadmap-Based Framework for Acquiring More Agile and Responsive C4I Systems

Eric Yuan
Greg Wenzel

Booz Allen Hamilton

May 18, 2010 at 14:30

ABSTRACT

To deliver Net-Centric capabilities more quickly and more responsive to the warfighter's needs, the C4I system acquisition processes themselves must become more agile and adaptable. This whitepaper outlines some of the major challenges in acquiring C4I systems today, and presents an innovative approach to address these challenges using Net-Centric principles. The approach employs a roadmap-based framework that systematically identifies and manages the mission capabilities, services, and acquisition activities, with end-to-end traceability across them.

This framework serves as an invaluable tool for managing an acquisition program's technical baseline, and allows the organization to truly reap the benefits of SOA and Net-Centricity. This roadmap approach is being practiced at the program, enterprise, and community levels across the Defense, Intelligence, and Civil sectors of the Government. The paper concludes with risk mitigation mechanisms and practical guidelines on how to successfully execute the roadmap approach.

BIO

E. Yuan, Eric Yuan is a Senior Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton's Strategic Technology and Innovation (ST&I) Team. He has over 15 years of professional experience in software development and IT consulting in both commercial and public sectors. He has extensive expertise in architecting and delivering large-scale, distributed enterprise solutions using leading edge technologies, with special strengths in Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), Web Services, Enterprise Architecture (EA), IT Strategy, and System Integration. In the SOA arena specifically, Mr. Yuan has extensive experience in SOA capability planning, Net-Centric systems evolution and governance, architecture frameworks and methodologies, service portfolio management, and SOA standards and specifications. In the past 8 years he has provided strategy and technical leadership for several transformational initiatives across the DoD, including:

• Chief Architect, Integration Space Situational Awareness (ISSA), US Air Force
• Program Manager, Army Enterprise SOA Foundation (AE SOAF)
• Chief Architect and Project Lead, Distributed Common Ground System - Army (DCGS-A)
• Lead Security and Service Discovery Architect, DISA Net-Centric Enterprise Services (NCES)
• Lead System Architect, Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS)
• Lead Architect, NATO Shared Tactical Ground Picture (STGP)

Mr. Yuan's recent publications include:

• Co-author of SOA chapter in Defense Science Board report on Achieving Interoperability in a Net-Centric Environment, September 2008
• "Realizing the Army Net-Centric Data Strategy (ANCDS) in a Service Oriented Architecture", AFCEA C4I Symposium, May 2008
• "Providing Actionable Intelligence to the Warfighter through SOA and Web Services - US Army Case Study", Presentations at the Gartner Application Development Conference, June 2007 and the Gartner Event Processing Conference, September 2007
• "Actionable Intelligence for the Warfighter - Achieving Army ISR Net-Centricity Through a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)", Army Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (AL&T) Journal, April-June 2007 issue
• "Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC)", talk given in the Ottawa Workshop on New Challenges of Access Control, April 2005
• "Assured Counter-Terrorism Information Sharing Using Attribute Based Information Security (ABIS)", published in the IEEE Aerospace Conference proceedings, March 2005
• Co-author, Defense Discovery Metadata Specification (DDMS) XML Schema, version 1.0, OSD/NII, 2004

Mr. Yuan holds a BS degree in Computer Science and an MS degree in Systems Engineering from University of Virginia.

G. Wenzel,is a Senior Vice President with Booz Allen Hamilton's Strategic Technology and Innovation (ST&I) Team providing leadership in Advanced Enterprise Integration focusing on emerging technologies applied to solve client business needs. He has specialized in distributed computing solutions and has experience that includes intelligence community systems, tactical warfighting systems, commercial web based systems, and advanced distributed simulation. He is a recognized leader in leading edge solutions specifically in the areas of Business to Business (B2B) exchanges, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA), distributed simulation, grid computing, and Net-Centricity. He is currently focused on the Net-Centric transformation of IT systems in DoD. He is working with ASD/NII, USD(I), DISA, DNI, Army and the Air Force to architect and implement Net Centric solutions across the DoD enterprise.

From 2000 - 2001, Mr. Wenzel served as Chief Architect for several commercial B2B exchanges while at the Booz Allen commercial spinoff, Aestix.com. Prior to Aestix, he was Chief Engineer for several distributed applications supporting multiple clients across the DoD. These clients included DARPA, DIA, DCA-C4S (DISA), Air Force, and Army.

Mr. Wenzel holds a BS in Computer Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and a MS in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Dynamic Resource Allocation for Network Aware Applications

Andy Peng
Dennis Moen
Tian He
David J. Lilja

Lockheed-Martin
George Mason University

May 18, 2010 at 14:30

ABSTRACT

Network aware applications provide opportunities for adaptive resource allocations for both network resources and distributed hosting of critical applications. We propose an Automatic Dynamic Resource Management (Auto-DRM) architecture for efficiently managing shared resources in the tactical network environments without human operator intervention. The AutoDRM architecture was developed to resolve the resource contention issues and to improve the quality of service in the tactical network environments. The information herein describes key components of the AutoDRM architecture. An experimental end-to-end network prototype test bed consisting of simulated satellite communications (SATCOM) and an OPNET system-in-the-loop (SITL) scenario was also developed to host the AutoDRM system. Experimental results demonstrate improved network performance when AutoDRM is deployed.

BIO

A. Peng is a Senior System Engineer at Lockheed Martin, MS2 Tactical Systems. Andy received B.S. degrees in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with minor in Mathematics from Texas Tech University in 1999, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering with minor in Computer and Information Sciences from University of Minnesota in 2004. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Minnesota. His research interests include network modeling and simulation, tactical network architectures, networking system integration, and sensor networks.

Dr. D. Moen is an Affiliate Faculty member of the George Mason Center of Excellence in C4I. He received his BS degree in Engineering at the United States Military Academy and holds a MS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona and PhD in Information Technology from George Mason University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and Chairperson of the is an Affiliate Faculty member of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the IEEE Communications Society. His research interests are in the area of survivable network architectures, network design and performance modeling.

Developing a Social Complexity Framework
for Applications in Asymmetric Operations

Paul Cummings
Linda Lewandowski
Michael Golson

ICF

May 18, 2010 at 14:30

ABSTRACT

Predictive behavior modeling poses several difficult challenges. Often seemingly small or insignificant tactical level events have lead to socio-political situations that shape the course of wars, influence political and policy changes, create areas of hostile incubation, and affect economic and social climates. We propose a tactical level simulation framework that provides a novel method of modeling social complexity in which virtual agents perceive events and share their interpretations of events. The framework uses an open source technology design with an emphasis on generating extensible agent interaction models and realistic representations of agent's actions, gestures, communications, and responses in a virtual training environment. The organizational dynamics generated by the modeling approach produce a highly variable set of possible outcomes to the training scenario. Combined with specific learning objectives, this high degree of variability within a learning environment poses new challenges to the trainee, namely the need to be aware of how to operate in highly dynamic environments. We propose a model for simulating aspects of social complexity using an agent-based immersive training system and describe how these techniques can be applied to the development and analysis of irregular and asymmetric warfare scenarios.

BIO

P. Cummings

Model-Based System Development
for Managing the Evolution of a
Common Submarine Combat System

Steven Mitchell

Lockheed-Martin

May 18, 2010 at 14:30

ABSTRACT

Managing the evolution of a complex product family that is deployed and maintained in multiple variants on various platforms using traditional systems engineering tools and processes is a significant challenge. An example is managing the evolution of a common combat system across a fleet of submarines. Due to the realities of budgets and operational scheduling, multiple versions of the product must be managed for each ship: the currently deployed version, the upcoming tech refresh version, and future versions in planning and development. Adding to the complexity, the product family has variations for each class and flight of submarine, individual ships may vary in capabilities and equipment from the flight baseline, ships within a flight are upgraded at different times driven by maintenance availabilities, and each periodic upgrade may introduce new functional capabilities as well as updated software and hardware as the combat system evolves.

To streamline this task, an integrated model based systems engineering process is being developed around a collection of tightly coupled models built in SysML and UML. This paper provides a preliminary description of the structure of those models, and places it in the context of related research.

BIO

S. Mitchell has spent three decades as a systems engineer working on programs ranging from satellites to submarines. During this time he has been lead systems architect for experiments and demonstrations from Southern California to the Persian Gulf, as well as on programs of record including the Small Combatant Joint Command Center.

As the Lead Systems Architect for LM MS2 Undersea Systems, Mr. Mitchell provides technical leadership on multiple programs and new business pursuits, as well as chairing the LM MS2 Systems Architect Development and Qualification Program. In addition, he performs consultation and technical reviews for projects, and supports the professional development of systems architects, across the Corporation. His current research is focused on efficient standards-compliant representations to support model-based systems engineering of complex product families.

Previously, Mr. Mitchell led the LM Librascope Intelligent Systems Laboratory, worked in Electronic Warfare and Artificial Intelligence at ARGOSystems, Inc, and worked as a Mission Analyst for Martin Marietta Aerospace.

Mr. Mitchell earned a BS in Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology (1977), and an MS in Computer Science at George Mason University (2002). He is currently working towards a PhD in Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George Mason University.

SOLUTIONS Session:
Implementation of
Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) Initiatives

May 19, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

This session will review the status of deploying the new Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) framework. Discussion topics will include: What actions are being undertaken based on the recommendations of the Interagency Task Force? What parameters are being used to determine CUI status? Is there a clear understanding of the legislative requirements?

SPEAKERS

C4I CENTER Technology Paper Session:
Special Session on Counter-IED

Current Issues in Counter-IED

COL John "Mack" McCarthy,

Joint IED Defeat Organization

May 18, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

BIO

COL J. McCarthy enlisted in the New Jersey Army National Guard in 1980, starting a military career that has taken him from his hometown of Bogota, New Jersey to his current duties as the Chief of Intelligence of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization in Arlington, Virginia. He has held numerous analytical and leadership positions within Army Intelligence and brings a wealth of experience assist in defeating improvised explosive devices.

Colonel McCarthy enlisted in the New Jersey Army National Guard while attending Bogota High School and served as a signalman. He was commissioned as a field artillery officer in the New Jersey Army National Guard in 1983. Following his graduation from Trenton State College at Ewing, New Jersey in 1985 he was accepted to serve on active duty. He served in the 9th Infantry Division Artillery as a Company and Battalion Fire Support Office as well as a battalion ammunition and nuclear surety officer. He was selected for transfer to the Military Intelligence Corps in 1988. COL McCarthy has served in critical intelligence positions which included: Chief of Signals Intelligence for the 2nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea, Chief of the 1st Armored Divisions Analysis and Control Element, Operations Officer for the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion deployed to Kosovo, Intelligence Officer supporting the Information Operations Cell in V U.S Corps while deployed to Iraq, NATOs senior signals intelligence and electronic warfare officer deployed to Afghanistan, Deputy Director for Intelligence for the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army and as the Commander of the 527th Military Intelligence (Strategic Signals Intelligence) in the Republic of Korea. Prior to becoming the Chief of Intelligence, he served as the Intelligence Officer for the Eighth U.S. Army in the Republic of Korea.

Colonel McCarthy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Trenton State College in 1985. As an enlisted Soldier he graduated from U.S. Army Basic and Advanced Individual Training Courses. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College and wears the Airborne and Air Assault badges. His awards include Defense Distinguished Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters), and Army Commendation Medal (with 3 Oak Leaf Clusters), Army Achievement Medal (2 Oak Leaf Clusters) and the NATO Medal.

Analytical Support for Rapid Initial Assessment
of Counter-IED Initiatives

Charles Twardy, George Mason University
Edward Wright, Online Star, Inc.
Kathryn Laskey, George Mason University
Tod Levitt, George Mason University
Kellen Leister, George Mason University

May 19, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become a weapon of choice in asymmetric warfare, and are responsible for the majority of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The mission of the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) is to focus Department of Defense actions in support of efforts to defeat IEDs as weapons of strategic influence. To support this mission, JIEDDO engages in rapid acquisition of new technology initiatives to support the Counter Improvised Explosive Device battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. Due to the tight time constraints, traditional test and evaluation methods, which rely on extensive test data, cannot be applied. This paper presents a methodology for rapidly assessing the impact of proposed initiatives on the counter-IED fight. The methodology exploits available information to build a probabilistic model that provides an explicit executable representation of the initiative's likely impact. The model is used to provide a consistent, explicit, explanation to decision makers on the likely impact of the initiative. Sensitivity analysis on the model provides analytic information to support development of informative test plans.

BIO

Dr. Twardy followed his 1999 Ph.D. in History & Philosophy of Science (and Cognitive Science) from Indiana University with a postdoc at Monash University in causal modeling with Bayesian networks. At Monash, he developed Bayesian Networks to predict coronary heart disease and lost-person behavior (but not at the same time). He also worked on Bayesian models for the life cycle of the Murray cod, and for water quality in Sydney Harbour and the Great Barrier Reef.

In 2005 he returned to the US working on a SBIR grant for lost person behavior, and joined IET in late 2005. At IET (and its spinoff OLS), Charles helped develop Bayesian credibility models for sensors and human sources, information theoretic sensor selection methods, hierarchical fusion models for image recognition, and embedding game theory in Bayesian networks. Since 2008 he as been at George Mason University's C4I Center, working on data analysis and Bayesian modeling for the Counter-IED project.

Charles has also published (a little) on causation, teaching critical thinking, algorithmic compressibility, and Mayan astronomy. He is now re-starting the SARBayes project for predicting lost person behavior and optimally allocating search resources.

Dr. Laskey is Associate Professor of Systems Engineering and Operations Research and Associate Director of the C4I Center at George Mason University, where she teaches and performs research on computational decision theory and evidential reasoning. Professor Laskey's research involves working with human experts to put their knowledge into a form that can be processed by computers, and applying probability theory to draw conclusions from evidence that comes from many different sources. She has applied her research to problems such as modeling the emplacement of improvised explosive devices, predicting aircraft delays, managing terrorist risk at public facilities, judicial reasoning, and planning military engagements. Dr. Laskey developed multi-entity Bayesian networks (MEBN), a language and logic that extends classical first-order logic to support Bayesian probability. She was a key contributor to the development of PR-OWL, an upper ontology that allows MEBN theories to be represented in OWL ontologies. Dr. Laskey served on a National Academy of Sciences committee to assess the statistical validity of the polygraph and is a member of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Laskey received the BS degree in mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, the MS degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan, and the PhD degree in statistics and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

A Decision Analytic Approach for Measuring
the Value of Counter-IED Solutions at the
Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

Ronald Woodaman
Andrew Loerch
Kathryn Laskey

George Mason University

May 19, 2010 at 10:30

ABSTRACT

The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) focuses on rapidly identifying, developing, testing, and fielding counter-IED solutions. These solutions cover a broad range of functions and potential impacts. For the initial years of its existence JIEDDO faced few fiscal constraints in its investments. As funds have become tighter, JIEDDO is faced with harder decisions about whether to fund possible solutions. In this paper we describe a prototype decision analytic model for valuating counter-IED solutions. The goal of the research is for this model to provide decision makers with a common basis for constrained investment decisions. We describe how this valuation approach might be used as part of a stochastic portfolio optimization scheme.

BIO

R. Woodaman graduated in 1987 from the U.S. Naval Academy with a BS in Systems Engineering. During his 20 year Marine Corps career, he spent his first eleven years in various infantry, reconnaissance, recruit training assignments, graduating from Marine Basic Reconnaissance Course and U.S. Army Ranger school. He is a veteran of Panama, Operation DESERT STORM, and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. His career took a different turn when he attended the Naval Postgraduate School, graduating with distinction in 2000 with an MS in Operations Research. He spent the rest of his career in a variety of analytic billets in combat development, combat assessment, and systems acquisition. He is now a research associate with the George Mason University C4I Center, part of the Mason-JIEDDO research team. Concurrently, he is a Principle Analyst with Innovative Decisions, Inc., developing Pricing and Performance models for the Navy Installations Command, and conducting cost-benefit studies for Marine Corps Systems Command. He is a PhD candidate in Systems Engineering and Operations Research at George Mason and aims to graduate by spring 2011. He is the loving husband of the former Michelle L. Wolpert, and the proud father of Zoe (98), Iain (00), and Isabella (05). They reside in Stafford, VA.

SOLUTIONS Session:
Key Challenges in C4I Acquisition

May 19, 2010 at 15:00

ABSTRACT

This session will focus on the unique issues that make IT Acquisition different. Discussion topics will include: How do we procure in a cloud environment? What's the impact of the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act (WSARA)? Is it possible to structure the acquisition process to keep pace with the speed of the IT change cycle?

SPEAKERS

C4I CENTER Technology Paper Session:
New Ideas in C4I Acquisition

Let's Cure Defense Enterprise
Information Technology Acquisition

Chris Gunderson

JITC/NPS

May 19, 2010 at 15:00

ABSTRACT

The Defense Community's inability to realize its "enterprise" vision for the Global Information Grid (GIG) has reached crisis. The Defense Science Board (DSB) reports that a new acquisition process, aligned with commercial best practice is required. Commercial best practice is all about leveraging economy of scale to achieve better speed or better capability than the competition. Successful firms subscribe to a common model for value-based evolutionary development. The iPhone is good metaphor for that model. The JCIDS process can support the same model by morphing existing serial, paper-intensive compliance artifacts and processes into a continuous, parallel, automated process in a persistent virtual environment.

BIO

Chris Gunderson is a Research Associate Professor of Information Science at the Naval Post Graduate School. He is on a special assignment in Reston VA sponsored by the Defense Information System Agency (DISA) Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) to establish a Netcentric Certification Office (NCO). The NCO will link distributed DoD laboratories in partnership with industry to create a public/private e-Business portal for delivery of government certified "net-ready" software products and services.

Prior to this assignment, Gunderson managed an initiative sponsored by OSD to create the World Wide Consortium for the Grid (W2COG), a global network of collaborative experts committed to rapidly fielding netcentric tools.

Gunderson retired from the US Navy in October 2004 as a Captain following 27 years' service.

His last assignment in the Navy was as Commanding Officer of Fleet Numerical Oceanographic & Meteorological Center, a super computer network operation center in Monterey, Calif. Prior to that assignment,Gunderson served as Deputy Oceanographer of the Navy, and helped develop DoD policy for enhancing information system interoperability. He holds a BS from the U.S. Naval Academy, an MS (with honors) from the Naval Postgraduate School, and is a Fellow of the American Meteorology Society.

The FIST Approach to System Development Projects

Daniel Ward

USAF

May 19, 2010 at 15:00

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the impact of a value set called FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) on system development projects. The findings show the FIST value set enhances project stability, increases the project leader's control and accountability, optimizes failure, and facilitates learning. FIST is therefore recommended as a productive set of values for system development projects.

BIO

D. Ward is Chief of Acquisition Innovation in the Acquisition Chief Process Office, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Integration. LtCol Ward's background includes laser research, satellite projects, communication infrastructure installations, imagery exploitation tools and a social networking tool for the military. His assignments before joining the Air Staff include laboratories, program offices and an intelligence agency. LtCol Ward's writings have appeared in Defense AT&L, SIGNAL, Harpers, Gilbert and the Information Systems Security Association journal. He is the author of 6 books, including a design book titled The Simplicity Cycle and a series of children's novels.

Edge Enabled Systems

Zacharie Hall, US Army CERDEC
Rick Kazman, Carnegie Mellon University
Daniel Plakosh, Carnegie Mellon University
Joseph Giampapa, Carnegie Mellon University
Kurt Wallnau, Carnegie Mellon University

May 19, 2010 at 15:00

ABSTRACT

Users of today have ever-increasing levels of technical skill with computing and communication technologies. For example, on the battlefield, some soldiers are capable of creating or modifying existing systems in response to needs that were not anticipated by the designers of the original systems. In a growing number of situations this ability is crucial, because the soldier must be able to adapt rapidly to a dynamically changing operating environment; thus the software must also be adaptable. Software architectures and software development methods must be created that enable user innovation "at the edge" so that users can be as effective as possible in the face of changing missions and unanticipated needs. In this paper, we describe the characteristics of edge systems and the edge organizations in which these systems operate, and make initial recommendations about how such systems and organizations can be created to serve the needs of users at the edge.

BIO

Z. Hall is a computer scientist for the Army's Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC). Since arriving at CERDEC in 2006, Zacharie has worked closely with warfighters at the tactical, operational and strategic levels affording him the opportunity to identify and understand a wide range of unique problem spaces. Zacharie began his career with CERDEC developing, fielding and supporting machine foreign language translation systems to various locations within the US and internationally. His efforts satisfied joint urgent operational needs of warfighters in US Southern and Pacific Commands. Zacharie was assigned to the position of Executive Officer for the Director of CERDEC's Command and Control Directorate in 2008. In that role, Zacharie gained an appreciation for the organization's strategic planning and utilization of partnerships within the Army, Department of Defense and other international research centers. Currently, Zacharie is working with operational units to further refine the emerging concept "Edge Programming" and is leading a number of research and development efforts that address the urgent and unanticipated needs of warfighters. Zacharie has a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Drexel University and is currently pursuing his Masters of Science in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.