Coalition Agents eXperiment The Coalition TIE

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CoAX Technology Contributions TTCP Meeting -
Malvern - September 2000 AFRL Rome, AIAI,
Boeing, Dartmouth, DERA Malvern, Lockheed Martin
ATL, Michigan, MIT Sloan, Stanford, USC/ISI,
UWF/IHMC Support from BBN, GITI, ISX, MITRE,
Schafer Coalition Agents eXperiment
(CoAX) http//www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/project/coax/
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Technical Contributions

• GITI - CoABS Grid Infrastructure
• Boeing and UWF/IHMC- KAoS Domain Management
• AIAI Process Panel - Task and Process Management
• DERA Master Battle Planning
• LM ATL EMAA/CAST AODB - Restricted Data Base
  Access
• AFRL/BBN/GITI CAMPS - Air Logistics Support Tool
• USC/ISI Ariadne - Open Information Access
• UWF/IHMC - NOMADS safe and secure mobile agents
• Stand alone demonstrations at 9 months
• MIT Robustness Services
• Stanford Incentives Management
• Dartmouth Observer Agent
• Michigan Coordination Planning Aid

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GITI/ISXThe CoABS Grid

• The CoABS/Infrastructure code provides a
  framework for integrating diverse agent-based
  systems, and provides additional common services.
• The Grid allows agents to find services and other
  agents so that agent teams can be dynamically
  formed to solve context-based tasks.
• The Grid is built using JiniTM technology. Direct
  agent communication is provided using message
  queues built on JAVA RMI. Grid Logging Markup
  Language based on XML.

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Prototype Grid Architecture

• Interoperability of distributed, heterogeneous
  objects, services, and multi-agent systems.
• Registration and advertisement of capabilities.
• Discovery of relevant participants, and flexible
  run-time communications.
• Current Grid services include Logging,
  Visualization, Security, Instrumentation,
  Communication, Registration, and Event Services.

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Boeing/UWF - Agent Domains
DM
An agent domain consists of one or more agents
registered with a common Domain Manager which
provides for common administration and
enforcement of domain-wide, platform-specific,
and agent-specific policies.
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Agent Domain Management in CoAX

• Broadens typical distributed security concerns to
  include
• Communication and access management Who can
  communicate with whom for what services?
• Registration management Who can join the domain
  under what circumstances?
• Resource management Who can have which kind and
  how much of a given computing resource?
• Mobility management Who can move where under
  what circumstances?
• Conversation management What constraints govern
  interaction between conversing agents?
• Obligation management Who is not meeting
  commitments?

Initial capability shown in six-month
demo Initial capability slated for nine-month
demo Initial capability slated for 2001-2002 demos
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Policy Admin Tool
Policy Management Framework
Authorized user makes changes over the Web
KAoS Domain Manager
1. Ensures policy consistency at all
levels 2. Stores policy changes 3. Notifies guards
HTTP
RMI
Servlet
Event-driven policy changes
RMI
JNDI
Policy Directory
Other
Guard
Aroma VM
Guard
Java VM
Guard
Agent
Native Mech
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
Agent
Native Mech
1. Abstract, mechanism- neutral
representation/XML syntax (DAML
collaboration) 2. Distributed networked
availability 3. Secure
Guard is responsible for 1. Interpreting
policy 2. Enforcing with appropriate native
mechanism
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KAoS Policy Admin Tool
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AIAI I-X Process Panel

• Initially maintains an overview of the current
  status the coalition C2 processes in accessible
  shared military terms.
• Later adds the ability to monitor, plan and
  control the coalition C2 processes.
• Can take on and address issues in the C2
  process.
• Links to and assists with domain management,
  authority, exception management and other Grid
  management services.
• To be packaged as generic task and process
  management facilities that can be made available
  to other Grid applications.

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AIAI I-X Process Panel
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DERAMaster Battle Planner

• Visual planning tool for air operations.
• Map-based graphical user interface - operator
  builds scenario and air missions using simple
  dialogs and point and click techniques.
• Analyzes plans (identifying over-tasking, GANTT
  charts, animated flyout facility)
• Obtains data on targets and assets from other
  agents.
• Integrates air missions (e.g. air transport) and
  weather forecasts from other agents into the air
  visualisation.
• Informs AIAIs Process Panel of current planning
  status.

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DERAMaster Battle Planner
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DERAMaster Battle Planner
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AFRL/GITI/BBNCAMPS Mission Planner

• Develops schedules for aircraft to pick up and
  deliver cargo within specified time windows.
• Takes into account a large number of constraints
  (aircraft port capabilities, crew availability,
  work schedule rules)
• Can be tasked by other agents.
• Domain-aware agent obtains scheduled air
  transport flights and forwards them to Master
  Battle Planner for integration into the air
  visualisation.

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AFRL/GITI/BBNCAMPS Mission Planner
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USC/ISI Ariadne Weather Agent
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LM ATL EMAA/CAST AODB Access Agent

• Provides access to AODB via XML formatted Grid
  messages.
• Supports different kinds of queries one shot,
  update, and persistent.
• Will be evolving EMAA/CAST technology to create a
  deliverable generic Grid-aware core agent engine
  to other end users. This technology will be
  configurable and is intended to easily allow
  access to alternative sources.

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LM ATL EMAA/CAST AODB Access Agent
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Lm ATL EMAA/CAST AODB Access Agent
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USC/ISI Open Information Access

• Provide real-time access to Web data sources
• Tools for learning wrappers to extract data for
  semi-structured sources
• Agents learn the structure of data to support
• Source verification
• automatically detect when the source no longer
  provides correct data (possibly because the
  source has changed)
• Source reinduction
• automatically revise wrapper when site change

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Resource Control and Security in NOMADS

• Dynamic and fine-grained resource control
• NOMADS enforces security policies specified by
  the KAoS domain manager
• Security policies include limits on CPU, disk,
  and network resource usage
• Resource consumption monitoring
• NOMADS Guard constantly monitors the resource
  consumption of the GAO agent
• When the guard detects a potential denial of
  service, the guard reduces the resource limits
  available to the GAO agent

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Resource Control and Security in NOMADS
Aroma VM
G
GAO
DAO
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Field Observations (Dartmouth)

• Team of soldiers
• PDAs
• Ad-hoc wireless networking
• Soldiers make observations.
• Ground traffic
• Air traffic
• Personnel and equipment
• Buildings and other structures
• Observations are fed into battle-planning systems
  (e.g., MBP) through the CoABS Grid.
• In the demo, a team of CoAX soldiers will make
  observations to correct Gao mis-information.

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Field Observations (Dartmouth)
I see a tank!
Query/ Response
Observation Viewer
(9-month demo - standalone)
Registration/ Update Stream
MBP
(18-month demo - integrated)
Observations
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MIT Robustness Service

• The Challenge
• Open systems (like coalitions) include unreliable
  agents (bugs, malice) and infrastructures
• The MIT Robustness Service
• Monitors agent health via polling
• Tracks inter-agent commitments
• Controls task cancellation, result caching task
  re-announcement
• Maintains reliability information (failure
  avoidance)
• Informs registry of hung agents

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Michigan Multilevel Coordinator Agent

• Analyses the alternative plan spaces of coalition
  functional teams that plan independently and act
  asynchronously
• Works top-down with plans chosen by teams to
  predict unintended interactions (resource
  contentions friendly fire).
• Identifies candidate resolutions (timing or
  action constraints).
• Notifies process panel of possible plan
  conflicts and computed workarounds.
• Operationalizes/enforces coordination decisions
  selected.
• Given more time, isolates and resolves conflicts
  more precisely and efficiently.
• Allows planning and coordination decisions to be
  postponed until runtime conditions become better
  known.
• Packaged as a Grid-aware component that can be
  proactively executing and utilized by the AIAI
  Process Panel.

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Michigan Multilevel Coordinator Agent
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Removed and Spare Slides

• Old versions and spare slides

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Policy EnforcementProblems and Solutions

• Problem Enforcing policies on unmodified,
  potentially malicious agents

• Solution Platform-based enforcement (e.g., Java
  2 security)

• Problem Permissions granted statically according
  to code source (cant have different permissions
  for two agent instances from same code base)

• Solution Hack JAAS (Java Authentication and
  Authorization Service) to allow dynamic
  permissions and instance-level authentication and
  authorization

• Problem High-level agent security requirements
  do not always map to low-level built-in Java
  security mechanisms

• Solution Lock down permissions of untrusted
  (agent) code and force agent to use a trusted
  privileged-code wrapper under control of the
  guard (eventually to be packaged as domain-aware
  grid helper) to perform selected actions

• Problem Fine-grained resource allocation and
  control and revocation of permissions in the face
  of denial-of-service attacks

• Solution Run agent under Java-compatible Aroma
  VM allowing dynamic fine-grained resource rate
  and quantity control

• Problem Obligation policies cannot be enforced
  by preventing actions in advance but only by
  monitoring and after-the-fact sanctions

• Solution Sentinel-based policy enforcement
  (relevant work in this area by MIT)

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Field Observations (Dartmouth)
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Michigan Coalition Coordination

• Coalitions formed in response to emergent needs
• Functional teams (firestorm, logistics, etc.)
  formed with participants from contributing
  partners
• Without prior history, functional teams can
  possibly act redundantly, counterproductively, or
  even harmfully (e.g., friendly fire)
• Problem Supporting (through automation) the
  identification of potential interferences between
  functional teams at appropriate level(s) of
  detail, and proposing mitigation strategies

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Michigan Coalition Coordination Example
Logistics Deliver experimental weapon from Alpha
to Foxtrot
Combat Deny airspace Beta destroy bridge Epsilon

• Coordination Decisions
• Logistics stays on ground
• Combat waits for Logistics
• to use Epsilon before destroying

Beta
Epsilon