From Information Description to Information Understanding: The Role of Ontology in Emerging SISO Standards

摘要

A critical challenge in computing is making human information intelligible to automated systems. The long-standing domain of Knowledge Representation in the field of artificial intelligence addresses this challenge through both representation schemes (how information is encoded) and computational algorithms (how information is processed). For distributed systems on the scale of the World Wide Web, numerous researchers and organizations have laid out a technical approach and road map, often referred to as the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Stack, respectively. These technologies are intended to improve the encoding of semantics to enable automated systems to perform reasoning that will assist human users more effectively. Formalization of information into an ontology using a standard encoding language such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL) creates opportunities for advanced capabilities. Just as we have seen adoption of XML in the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) as a means for specifying standards for interoperability over the past 15 years, it appears likely that a similar transition is necessary in the coming years as the community becomes more aware of the opportunities and benefits from using formal semantic representations in specification and use of its interoperability standards. A Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) Product Development Group (PDG) is developing a standard for Command and Control System to Simulation System Interoperation (C2SIM). The C2SIM standard will improve upon and replace the current SISO standards Military Scenario Definition Language (MSDL; SISO-STD-007-2008) and Coalition Battle Management Language (C-BML; SISO-STD-011-2014). Current work in the PDG is specifying a core logical data model ontology addressing key areas of C2-to-Simulation interoperation such as initialization and tasking/reporting. This paper discusses motivation of using ontology as the specification language for the C2SIM standard and explores some of the capabilities that will be obtained from this approach in the short-term and over time as the approach gains more widespread adoption.