Resource Brokering Service: Automatic plan composition and execution

We address supporting unanticipated users and uses of limited information resources (sensors, databases, weapons -any resource intrinsically tied to digital information) in a timely and efficient fashion. Platform-centric systems often preclude users and uses not identified when the system was developed and deployed. Net-centric approaches, however, can address these problems by allowing services and information to be discovered and accessed at run-time. We have developed a Resource Brokering Service (RBS) that uses net-centric principles to enable multi-domain information and resource sharing and support for unanticipated users and uses. The RBS uses a modular software component framework for dynamically composing and tasking heterogeneous resources including sensors, data feeds, processors, archived data, networks, and even analysts into resilient, mission-oriented workflows. The RBS is applicable to multiple sense-decide-act military domains including missile defense, space situation awareness, ISR, border protection, and cyber defense. In this paper we give an overview of the concepts of the RBS and describe the process of transforming abstract plans to executable plans.