Managing ISR sharing policies at the network edge using controlled english

Abstract

In domains such as emergency response and military operations the sharing of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) assets among diferent coalition partners is regulated through policies. Traditionally, poli- cies are created at the center of a coalitions network by high-level decision makers and expressed in low-level policy languages (e.g. Common Information Model SPL) by technical personnel, which makes them dificult to be understood by non-technical users at the edge of the network. Moreover, policies must often be modified by negotiation among coalition partners, typically in rapid response to the changing operational situation. Com- monly, the users who must cope first with situational changes are those on the edge, so it would be very effective if they were able to create and negotiate policies themselves. We investigate the use of Controlled English (CE) as a means to define a policy representation that is both human-friendly and machine processable. We show how a CE model can capture a variety of policy types, including those based on a traditional asset ownership model, and those defining team-based asset sharing across a coalition. The use of CE is intended to benefit coalition networks by bridging the gap between technical and non-technical users in terms of policy creation and negoti- ation, while at the same time being directly processable by a policy-checking system without transformation to any other technical representation. © 2013 SPIE.