Joint doctrine ontology: A benchmark for military information systems interoperability

When the U.S. conducts warfare, elements of a force are drawn from different Services and work together as a single team to accomplish an assigned mission on the basis of joint doctrine. To achieve such unified action, it is necessary that specific Service doctrines be both consistent with and subservient to joint doctrine. But there are two further requirements that flow from the ways in which unified action increasingly involves not only live forces but also automated systems. First, the information technology that is used in joint warfare must be aligned with joint doctrine. Second, the separate information systems used by the different elements of a joint force must be interoperable, in the sense that data and information that is generated by each element must be usable (understandable, processable) by all the other elements that need them. Currently, such interoperability is impeded by multiple inconsistencies among the different data and software standards used by warfighters. We describe here the on-going project of creating a Joint Doctrine Ontology (JDO), which uses joint doctrine to provide shared computer-accessible content valid for any field of military endeavor, organization, and information system. JDO addresses the two previouslymentioned requirements of unified action by providing a widely applicable benchmark for use by developers of information systems that will both guarantee alignment with joint doctrine and support interoperability.