Agile Assignment of Sensing Assets to Mission Tasks in a Coalition Context Alun Preece, Cardiff University Tim Norman, University of Aberdeen Geeth de Mel, IBM US / Army Research Laboratory Diego Pizzocaro, Cardiff University Murat Sensoy, Ozyegin University / University of Aberdeen Tien Pham, Army Research Laboratory Abstract A key problem in managing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations in a coalition context is assigning available sensing assets – of which there are increasingly many – to mission tasks. High demands for information and relative scarcity of available assets implies that assignments must be made taking into account all possible ways of achieving an ISR task by different kinds of sensing. Moreover, the dynamic nature of most ISR situations means that asset assignment must be done in a highly agile manner. The problem is exacerbated in a coalition context because it is harder for users to have an overview of all suitable assets across multiple coalition partners. In this paper, we describe a knowledge-driven approach to ISR asset assignment using ontologies, allocation algorithms, and a service-oriented architecture. An illustration of the use of the system from a mobile device is presented. Keywords: sensor assignment; sensor sharing; intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance; ontology; coalition Introduction In a coalition context, making the most effective use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets is a challenging problem 1 . There are typically multiple ways to achieve an ISR task using sensor-provided data. For example, the NIIRS (National Image Interpretability Rating Scales) framework characterises various kinds of ISR tasks that can be achieved using visual sensing data of different types (visible, radar, infrared and multispectral) 2 . An end-user, for example an ISR analyst, cannot be expected to have specialist sensing knowledge: they need to be able to state their information needs in terms of what they want (for example, tracking high value targets in an area) rather than how those needs may be satisfied by sensor data. Assets are owned by different coalition partners, who need to control how their assets are shared with other partners 1 . Therefore the problem of identifying suitable ISR assets is difficult, without a great deal of knowledge about sensing capabilities and availability of coalition assets. Because the situation evolves rapidly, the asset-provisioning infrastructure that supports ISR