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Open Cougaar 2004

Dr. Mark GreavesDARPA / IXO

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In the Beginning…

DARPA Programs begin with a capability and an idea

The Advanced Logistics Project– Goal: to develop a new capability in Total Management of the Logistics

Pipeline• Logistics Pipeline includes demand generation, ordering, supply management,

sourcing, distribution, maintenance, transportation, and personnel. • Total Management includes the coordinated planning, execution, monitoring,

assessment and replanning – Metric: Creation of a TPFDD for an SSC in < 1 hour– Technology Idea: Software Agents

In 1997, software agents were a risky and radical technology– AA #1 had just happened (~150 people)– FIPA had proposed FIPA97, though there were no implementations yet– No existing agent framework had the range, scale, or scope to address the ALP

challenge

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Sources of Cougaar

BlackJackDELTA

Service Discovery

Advanced Logistics Project

UltraLog Program

Open SourceContributors

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Cougaar in 2004

Core Support Group

1-AD-DIV

Unit of Action

UA-2-CA-BNUA-1-CA-BN UA-3-CA-BN

1-ADBDEs

NCA

Theater Support

1,198 Functional Agents The foundation of most complex distributed agent-based application ever built

– Over 1,000 agents representing operational and logistics units

– 1-AD, FCS Unit of Action, Theater and Corps Support, CONUS supply and distribution

• Vehicle-level fidelity in 1-UA• BN-level fidelity in 1-AD

– Southwest Asia and Azerbaijan scenarios– 180 day plan with deployment, PREPO, ops– 10-15 minute TPFDD times

Continuous performance over a range of computer and network stresses

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Declaring Victory

DARPA has been successful with its investment– We have demonstrated that total management of the military logistics pipeline

is technologically achievable– We have demonstrated that large-scale, industrial-strength agent systems

are possible– We have demonstrated that software agent societies can survive in an

environment of constant faults, failures, and cyber attacks– We have demonstrated that agent technology is a reasonable and rational

choice for developing complex policy-guided P2P systems

The increasing maturity of Cougaar is the evidence that software agents no longer exhibit the degree of risk that is necessary for DARPA investment

DARPA will start winding down its explicit support for Cougaar– 1 or 2 more open source releases

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Whither Cougaar?

Cougaar artifacts– A mature component-based agent framework

specialized for large-scale complex planning and execution tasks in dynamic environments

– Embedded information assurance and fault tolerance technologies

– Designed to withstand simultaneous cyber and kinetic attack with controlled performance degradation

– Incredible development and testing framework– Documentation, technical papers, training

materials, sample programs– Clean IP status

A community of Cougaar-literate developers, designers, and managers

A track record of success and a rising amount of interest

We appear to bearound here

Meaningless Number

Cougaar Adoption

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Open Cougaar 2004

OpenCougaar 2004 starts the transition from a centrally planned R&D program with unified metrics to a distributed P2P project with differing requirements

Where do we go next?

Logistics Applicatio

ns

Individual Cougaar

Components

P2P and Complex Adaptive Systems

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Open Cougaar Goals

Exchange techniques for building Cougaar-based multiagent systems– Presentations and Panels– Demonstrations of Cougaar applications and tools

Plan how the Cougaar architecture should evolve and be governed– Coordination and control mechanisms for the open source base– Cougaar extensions, technical roadmaps, things left undone

Discover new colleagues and new synergies– The initial Cougaar community is largely here– What new projects and revolutionary ideas are there?

DARPA is an Observer – This is YOUR Conference

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A Personal Note

Cougaar is the child of many of us in this room… and that child is growing up and leaving to make her own way in the world

Cougaar has many parents– Government side, SETA side, consultants…

All the contractors who did the REAL work in creatingCougaar and making it what it is today

WOW!!!

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