<title>Integration of battlefield visualization and agent technology</title>

Abstract

There are several significant and related automation trends in the evolution of the tactical battlefield, necessary to support greatly increased mobility of our land forces. One relates to the increased. automation and distributed functionality of the nerve center or tactical operation center (TOC), with the introduction of intelligent software agents. The anticipated dynamics of the future battlefield will require greatly increased mobility, information flow, information assimilation, and decision action of these centers. The second relates to the digitization of battlefield platforms. This digitization greatly reduces the uncertainty concerning these platforms and enables automated information exchange between these platforms and their TOC. The third is the rapid development of robotic or physical agents for numerous hazardous battlefield visualization to exploit the potential synergy and unification of these disparate developments. Battlefield visualization programs are currently focused on effectively representing the physical environment to support planning, mission rehearsal, and situational awareness. As intelligent agents are developed, battlefield visualization must be enhanced to include the state, behavior, collaboration and results of these agents. An initial representation of software and physical agents within a single battlefield visualization is presented. The major challenges to attaining this level of automation, in particular human interaction and trust will be addressed.