Supporting the Coalition Agents eXperiment (CoAX) through the Technology Integration Experiment (TIE) Process

Abstract : The CoAX demonstration was an international effort between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Science Technology Office (DSTO), Defense Scientific Technical Laboratory (DSTL), and The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP). The CoAX participants included the Department of Defense (DoD) laboratories, industry and academia that were brought together with the purpose of showcasing the power of software agents to rapidly construct and maintain a coalition Command and Control Structure. The CoAX was conducted through numerous Technology Integration Experiments (TIEs). The purpose of the TIEs was to pair up participants in the demonstration in order to leverage the synergistic effects of software agent technology being developed by each participant. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), University of Maryland (UMD) and University of Texas (UTEX) participated in a TIE which demonstrated the integration of the NRL Global Command and Control System Maritime (GCCSM) surrogate with the Interactive Maryland Platform for Agents Collaborating Together (IMPACT) system and UTEX's Adaptive Agent Organization and Information-Trust-Evaluation agents. This paper will describe the CoAX 30-month experiment and the TIE that was conducted between NRL, UMD, and UTEX to support the experiment. We will conclude with a brief summary and areas for future investigation.